LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

GIFT  OF 


Accession  No.  VjZ  (J  <fH    MClass  No. 


Received 


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ESSAYS 


ON   THE 


Principles  of  Morality 


AND  ON  THE 


private  and  political 
Rights  and  Obligations  of  Mankind 


BY 

JONATHAN   DYMOND 

AUTHOR   OF    "  AN    ENQUIRY    INTO    THE   ACCORDANCY   OF   WAR 
WITH    THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   CHRISTIANITY,''   BTC. 


"As  the  will  of  God  is  our  rule ;  to  enquire  what  is  our  duty  or  what 
we  are  obliged  to  do,  in  any  instance,  is,  in  effect,  to  enquire  what  is  the 
will  of  God  in  that  instance  ?  zvhich  consequently  becomes  the  whole  business 
of  morality.''''— Paley. 


ABRIDGED  AND  REPRINTBDBY  THEBOOK  COMMITTEE 

OF   THE    PHILADELPHIA   YEARLY    MEETING   OF 

FRIENDS.     TO  BE  HAD  AT  FRIENDS'  BOOK 

STORE,  NO.  304  ARCH  ST.,  PHILA. 

1896. 

ELECTROTYPED   EDITION. 


?3-*9  *- 


PRESS  OP  AtTSTIN  C.  LEEDS, 

817   FILBERT   STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA. 


TO   THAT 


SMALL  BUT  INCREASING  NUMBER 

WHETHER  IN   THIS  COUNTRY   OR   ELSEWHERE, 

WHO 

MAINTAIN   IN   PRINCIPLE, 

AND 

ILLUSTRATE  BY  THEIR  PRACTICE, 

THE  GREAT  DUTY 

OF  CONFORMING  TO  THE 

LAWS  OP  CHRISTIAN  MORALITY 

WITHOUT  REGARD   TO 

DANGERS  OR  PRESENT  ADVANTAGES, 
THIS  WORK 

IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED. 


PREFACE. 


To  thk  First  Edition. 


The  author  of  this  work  died  in  the  spring  of  1828, 
leaving  in  manuscript  the  three  essays  of  which  it  con- 
sists. We  learn  from  himself  that  the  undertaking 
originated  in  a  belief  (in  which  he  probably  is  far  from 
being  alone)  that  the  existing  treatises  on  moral  phil- 
osophy did  not  exhibit  the  principles  nor  enforce  the 
obligations  of  morality  in  all  their  perfection  and  pur- 
ity ;  that  a  work  was  yet  wanted  which  should  present 
a  true  and  authoritative  standard  of  rectitude — one  by 
an  appeal  to  which  the  moral  character  of  human  ac- 
tions might  be  rightly  estimated.  This  he  here  en- 
deavors to  supply. 

Rejecting  what  he  considered  the  false  grounds  of 
duty,  and  erroneous  principles  of  action  which  are  pro- 
posed in  the  most  prominent  and  most  generally  re- 
ceived of  our  extant  theories  of  moral  obligation,  he 
preceeds  to  erect  a  system  of  morality  upon  what  he 
regards  as  the  only  true  and  legitimate  basis — the 
will  of  God.  He  makes,  therefore,  the  authority 
of  the  Deity  the  sole  ground  of  duty,  and  His  com- 
municated will  the  only  ultimate  standard  of  right  and 
wrong;  and  assumes,  "that  wheresoever  this  will  is 
made  known,  human  duty  is  determined  ;  and  that 
neither  the  conclusions  of  philosophers,   nor   advant- 


VI.  PREFACE. 

ages,  nor  dangers,  nor  pleasures,  nor  sufferings,  ought 
to  have  any  opposing  influence  in  regulating  our  con- 
duct." 

The  attempt  to  establish  a  system  of  such  uncom- 
promising morality,  must  necessarily  bring  the  writer 
into  direct  collision  with  the  advocates  of  the  utilitarian 
scheme,  particularly  with  Dr.  Paley  ;  and  accordingly 
it  will  be  found  that  he  frequently  enters  the  lists  with 
this  great  champion  of  expediency.  With  what  suc- 
cess— how  well  he  exposes  the  fallacies  of  that  specious 
but  dangerous  doctrine — how  far  he  succeeds  in  refut- 
ing the  arguments  by  which  it  is  sought  to  be  main- 
tained, and  in  establishing  another  system  of  obliga- 
tions and  duties  and  rights  upon  a  more  stable  founda- 
tion, must  be  left  to  the  reader  to  determine. 

In  thus  attempting  to  convert  a  system  of  moral 
philosophy,  dubious,  fluctuating,  and  inconsistent  with 
itself,  into  a  definite  and  harmonious  code  of  Scripture 
Ethics,  the  author  undertook  a  task  for  which,  by  the 
original  structure  of  his  mind  and  his  prevailing  habits 
of  reflection,  he  was,  perhaps,  peculiarly  fitted.  He 
had  sought  for  himself,  and  he  endeavors  to  convey  to 
others,  clear  perceptions  of  the  true  and  the  right ;  and 
in  maintaining  what  he  regarded  as  truth  and  rectitude, 
he  shows  everywhere  an  unshackled  independence  of 
mind,  and  a  fearless,  unflinching  spirit.  The  work 
will  be  found,  moreover,  if  we  mistake  not,  to  be  the 
result  of  a  careful  study  of  the  writings  of  moralists,  of 
much  thought,  of  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
genius  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  an  extensive  ob- 
servation of  human  life  in  those  spheres  of  action  which 
are  seldom  apt  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  meditative 
philosopher. 

In  proceeding  to  illustrate  his  principles,  the  author 
has  evidently  sought,  as  far  as  might  be,  to  simplify 
the    subject,    to    disencumber    it     of     abstruse    and 


PREFACE.  Vll. 

metaphysical  appendages,  and,  rejecting  subtleties 
and  needless  distinctions,  to  exhibit  a  standard  of 
morals  that  should  be  plain,  perspicuous  and  practicable. 
Premising  thus  much,  the  work  must  be  left  to  its 
own  merits.  It  is  the  last  labor  of  a  man  laudably 
desirous  of  benefiting  his  fellow  men  ;  and  it  will  fulfil 
the  author's  wish,  if  its  effect  be  to  raise  the  general 
tone  of  morals,  to  give  distinctness  to  our  perceptions 
of  rectitude,  and  to  add  strength  to  our  resolutions  to 
virtue. 


A    BRIEF    BIOGRAPHY    OF 
JONATHAN  DYMOND. 


In  attempting  to  compile  a  biographical  sketch  of 
Jonathan  Dymond,  to  accompany  the  present  edition  of 
his  "  Essays  on  the  Principles  of  Morality,  and  on  the 
Private  and  Political  Rights  and  Obligations  of  Man- 
kind," it  has  been  a  matter  of  some  surprise  that  the 
material  for  such  a  memorial  has  proved  to  be  very 
meager.  The  explanation  is  probably  to  be  found  in 
the  retiring  character  of  this  gifted  man,  the  close 
application  to  business  which  he  found  needful  in  main- 
taining his  little  family,  and  the  brief  period  of  life 
allotted  him.  While  therefore,  his  may  be  termed  an 
uneventful  life,  and  one  devoid  of  striking  incident,  it 
was  marked  by  rare  fidelity  to  duty,  the  diligent  occu- 
pation of  talents  of  no  common  order,  combined  with 
a  clearness  of  perception,  and  maturity  of  judgment 
seldom  met  with  in  early  years. 

The  thoughtful  cast  of  his  mind  readily  turned 
toward  questions  involving  some  of  the  highest  in- 
terests of  humanity,  and  the  promotion  of  the  Re- 
deemer's kingdom,  while  in  the  eminently  wise  and 
just  conclusions  which  are  reached  in  his  writings,  we 
cannot  doubt  his  intellectual  powers  were  quickened  and 
sanctified  by  Divine  grace,  and  his  course  of  reasoning 
guided  by  that  "Spirit  of    truth"    which   our   Lord 


BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN  DYMOND.  ix. 

promised  his  willing  disciples  should  ' '  guide  them  into 
all  truth  ; ' ;  should  take  of  the  things  of  Christ  and 
show  them  unto  them. 

It  has  been  long  felt  that  an  abridged  edition  of  the 
valuable  treatise  above  referred  to  would  prove  of 
especial  service  to  schools  in  the  United  States,  and  be 
the  better  adapted  to  the  average  American  reader. 
With  this  end  in  view,  there  have  been  omitted  chap- 
ters which  treat  of  the  national  Constitution  of  Great 
Britain,  the  system  of  Ecclesiastical  Tythes,  and  some 
views  relating  specifically  to   English   law   or   usage. 

It  has  also  been  thought  best  to  omit  chapters  on 
Slavery,  as  well  as  some  other  subjects,  and  a  few 
chapters  have  been  simply  abridged.  It  may  be  here 
proper  to  state  that  when  any  alteration  has  been  made 
from  the  original  text,  it  consists  in  omissions  only. 
This  course  has  resulted  in  the  production  of  a  much 
smaller  volume  which,  while  carefully  preserving  the 
line  of  argument  on  which  the  author  rests  his  conclu- 
sions, it  is  believed  does  full  justice  to  his  exhaustive 
and  forcible  method  of  dealing  with  the  subject  in 
hand. 


Jonathan  Dymond  was  born  in  the  year  1796  at 
Exeter,  England,  where  he  generally  resided  until  the 
close  of  his  life.  His  parents,  John  and  Olive  Dymond, 
were  highly  esteemed  members,  and  recognized  Minis- 
ters in  the  Religious  Society  of  Friends.  They 
sought  early  to  imbue  the  hearts  of  their  children 
with  a  deep  love  for  their  Heavenly  Father,  and  a 
reverence  for  the  truths  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
their  Saviour. 

The  bent  of  their  son  Jonathan's  mind  was  soon  dis- 
played in  a  disposition  for  quiet  reverie,  so  that,  from 
his  contemplative  habits,  and  the  sagacious  observa- 
tions which  he  frequently  dropped,  his  brothers  play- 


X.  BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN   DYMOND. 

fully  termed  him  ' '  the  philosopher. ' '  They,  as  well 
as  he,  possessed  strong  literary  tastes,  with  good  conver- 
sational powers,  while  a  fondness  for  discussing  subjects 
of  general  interest,  and  often  those  of  graver  import, 
served  to  train  their  minds  for  taking  broader  views  on 
the  leading  topics  of  the  day  than  were  generally 
accepted.  In  these  discussions  Jonathan  took  an 
earnest  part,  exhibiting  in  his  boyhood  a  marked  talent 
for  debate. 

In  person  he  was  slight,  and  in  stature  tall,  being 
somewhat  above  six  feet  in  height.  His  countenance, 
which  was  habitually  pale,  was  brightened  by  a  highly 
intellectual  and  winning  expression.  In  manner  he  was 
unassuming,  his  habits  were  simple  and  inexpensive. 
The  business  in  which  he  engaged  on  reaching  manhood, 
was  that  of  a  "  linen  draper, ' '  and  throughout  the  period 
of  financial  depression  which  prevailed  in  England  dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  his  life,  his  dealings  were  marked  by 
strict  integrity.  In  the  settlement  of  disputed  claims, 
he  was  from  time  to  time  appealed  to  by  his  fellow- 
citizens,  and  his  mature  judgment,  as  well  as  nice  sense 
of  justice,  especially  fitted  him  for  the  service  of  an 
arbitrator,  in  which  he  was  not  unfrequently  employed. 
It  was  at  the  conclusion  of  a  wearisome  and  harassing 
case  of  this  kind,  which  had  long  and  closely  occupied 
him,  that  the  disease  which  eventually  proved  fatal 
first  made  its  appearance. 

In  1822  he  married  a  member  of  his  own  religious 
persuasion,  residing  in  Plymouth.  The  tender  union 
thus  consummated  was  however  but  of  brief  duration. 
A  daughter  and  son  completed  their  little  family  group. 
The  latter  was  a  child  of  remarkable  precocity,  but 
was  removed  by  death  when  about  seven  years  old. 
Anna  Dymond  survived  her  husband  nearly  twenty-one 
years.  From  a  brief  memorial  written  in  1850,  the 
following  testimony  to  her  character  and  worth,  will 


BIOGRAPHY   OF  JONATHAN  DYMOND.  xi. 

prove  of  interest.  Referring  to  the  period  following 
the  death  of  her  beloved  companion,  it  is  stated  ' '  her 
consistent  Christian  deportment  entitled  her  to  be 
ranked  among  those  '  honorable  women '  whom  the 
apostle  styled  '  widows  indeed.'  A  series  of  domestic 
afflictions  marked  her  progress  ;  but,  mournful  as  she 
often  was,  her  humble,  silent  acquiescence  with  the  dis- 
pensations of  Divine  Providence,  and  her  efforts  not  to 
allow  her  sorrows  to  interrupt  the  active  duties  of  her 
every-day  life,  were  deeply  instructive.  Her  removal 
at  a  period  when  her  ripened  judgment  and  experience 
rendered  her  influence  and  example  very  valuable,  not 
only  in  the  social  circle,  but  in  the  church,  is  felt  to  be 
a  great  loss.  She  filled  the  stations  both  of  '  elder 
and  overseer '  in  the  meeting  to  which  she  belonged, 
and  she  discharged  the  duties  of  these  important  offices 
with  uprightness  and  integrity. 

'  ■  Her  health  for  many  years  was  delicate.  Her  last  ill- 
ness, wThich  confined  her  to  the  house  about  four  months 
was  of  such  a  character  as  to  leave  little  ground  to  hope 
for  her  recovery,  and  she  soon  became  aware  that  it 
would  probably  terminate  fatally.  The  resignation, 
and  even  cheerfulness  which  she  manifested,  and,  above 
all,  the  Divine  support  with  which  she  was  sustained, 
were  deeply  instructive  to  those  whose  privilege  it  was 
to  be  her  attendants. 

"  The  progress  of  the  disease  was  very  gradual;  but 
becoming  considerably  weaker,  and  suffering  much 
from  oppression,  she  said  to  those  about  her,  '  I  hope 
you  will  be  enabled  to  pray  for  me,  that  I  may  be  speedily 
released.'  Later  she  petitioned,  'Oh  gracious  Iyord!  be 
pleased  to  take  me  home,'  and  soon  after,  on  a  beloved 
relative  calling  to  see  her,  she  said,  '  I  trust  all  will  be 
well  !  The  language  ' '  Be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  over- 
came the  world ' '  has  occurred  to  my  mind,  and  I  can 
take  comfort   from  it.'     On   a   hope  being  expressed 


xil.  BIOGRAPHY  OP  JONATHAN  DYMOND. 

that  she  was  sensible  of  feeling  the  Holy  one  near,  she 
said  that  at  times  such  was  her  blessed  experience. 

'  •  Her  mental  faculties  continued  clear,  and  the  deep 
quietness  of  her  spirit  was  undisturbed,  until  at  the 
hour  of  midnight,  the  20th  of  First  month,  1849,  her 
redeemed  and  purified  spirit  passed  away." 

The  first  work  by  Jonathan  Dymond  which  appeared 
in  print  was  entitled  ' '  An  Inquiry  into  the  Accordancy 
of  War  with  the  Principles  of  Christianity,"  and  this 
was  ready  for  the  press,  before  any  of  his  nearest  rela- 
tives, with  the  exception  of  his  wife  and  brother 
William,  were  aware  that  he  had  been  preparing  it,  the 
former  aiding  him  in  correcting  the  proof-sheets.  The 
origin  of  this  treatise  was  briefly  as  follows  :  The 
author  was  a  member  of  a  small  literary  society,  con- 
sisting of  himself,  his  brothers  and  a  few  other  young 
persons,  whose  contributions  were  styled  the  - '  Iscan 
Budget,"  (Isca  being  the  ancient  Roman  name  of 
Exeter).  Its  meetings  were  held  once  a  month,  when 
the  essays  of  the  members  were  read  and  discussed. 
Among  others,  some  papers  on  the  subject  of  War  were 
contributed  by  Jonathan  Dymond,  and  these,  when  the 
Association  had  ceased  to  exist,  were  deemed  worthy 
of  more  permanent  preservation.  After  revision  and 
some  modification,  they  were  given  to  the  public  in 
1823,  under  the  above  title. 

During  the  printing  and  publishing  of  this  work, 
the  active  mind  of  our  author  had  been  strongly  turned 
toward  the  preparation  of  another,  of  still  broader 
scope,  and  designed  to  meet  what  he  conceived  to  be  a 
pressing  need  of  his  fellow-men  of  every  race  and 
condition.  Henceforth  he  became  deeply  absorbed  in 
the  effort  to  present  to  the  world  an  authoritative 
standard  of  moral  rectitude,  based  upon  the  teachings 
of  Christianity  as  they  had  been  proclaimed  by  its 
Divine  Founder.     By  an  appeal  to  such  a  standard,  he 


BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN   DYMOND.  Xlll. 

was  persuaded  the  character  of  human  actions 
should  be  tested,  rather  than  by  the  shifting  rules 
and  maxims  which  had  resulted,  too  often,  from 
the  lower  aims,  false  reasoning,  and  selfish  instincts 
of  men  who  essayed  to  be  teachers  of  morality  and 
virtue. 

Although  he  did  not  live  to  complete  this  work  to 
his  own  satisfaction,  nor  was  he  able  to  revise  the  latter 
part  of  it  for  printing,  sufficient  was  accomplished  to 
comprise  a  treatise  on  Christian  Ethics,  which  has 
scarcely  an  equal  for  the  clearness  and  courage  with 
which  it  has  carried  to  their  legitimate  conclusions  the 
plain  precepts  of  the  Gospel,  whether  as  regards  their 
practical  application  to  every-day  life,  the  internal 
government  of  communities,  or  the  relation  of  States 
and  Nations.  In  confirmation  of  the  soundness  of  its 
positions  it  is  very  observable,  that  though  produced 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  views  then  advanced  by 
Dymond,  but  rejected  as  little  more  than  Utopian, 
have  come  to  be  accepted  by  not  a  few  of  the  most 
clear  and  thoughtful  writers  of  the  present  day  ;  many 
of  his  suggestions  have  been  carried  into  successful 
practice  ;  while  steady  advances  are  being  continually 
made  toward  those  high  ideals  of  Christian  faith  and 
conduct  wrhich  are  set  forth  in  the  ' '  Essays  on  the 
Principles  of  Morality." 

The  disorder,  already  referred  to,  was  now  developing 
into  a  chronic  bronchial  affection  which  prevented  the 
ordinary  use  of  the  voice,  almost  any  effort  to  speak 
bringing  on  paroxysms  of  coughing,  so  painful,  that 
he  found  it  best  to  cease  speaking  altogether,  using  a 
slate  and  pencil  which  he  carried  with  him,  as  a  sub- 
stitute. Though  in  the  habit  of  visiting  London 
periodically  in  connection  with  affairs  of  business,  he 
had  never  travelled  extensively,  but  now,  under  the 
advice  of  his  physician,  he  sought  relief  by  a  change 


XIV.  BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN   DYMOND. 

of  air  and  scene  at  various  places  in  Devonshire  recom- 
mended for  their  salubrity. 

Early  in  1827  he  went  to  London  for  consultation 
with  some  of  the  most  eminent  medical  men  in  that 
city.  Among  others,  he  thus  met  Dr.  Thos.  Hancock, 
who  became  deeply  interested  in  his  patient.  In  a 
letter  to  a  friend,  Dr.  Hancock  remarked,  "  I  enjoyed 
but  a  short  and  melancholy  portion  of  his  society  and 
acquaintance,  for  it  was  under  peculiar  and  trying 
circumstances  that  I  last  saw  him  ;  yet  an  impression 
has  been  left  on  my  mind  that  can  never  I  think  be 
removed. "  "  His  mind  was  then  remarkably  clear  and 
vigorous,  and  he  appeared  to  be  quite  free  from  de- 
pressing anticipations  with  regard  to  the  result  of 
his  malady.  This  proved  in  the  end  to  be  pulmonary 
consumption. ' ' 

After  his  return  from  London,  thirteen  weeks  were 
passed  at  a  farmhouse  in  the  neighborhood  of  Exeter. 
This  was  a  retired  and  picturesque  spot  near  the  village 
of  Whitestone,  and  here  he  was  soon  diligently  em- 
ployed in  preparing  for  the  press  the  treatise  contained 
in  this  volume.  In  the  shady  lanes  around  his  peaceful 
retreat,  he  was  wont  to  seek  relaxation  from  the 
sedentary  labors  of  composition,  a  gentle  pony  carrying 
him  from  one  favorite  rural  scene  to  another.  On  these 
rambles,  he  seldom  started,  without  a  copy  in  his 
pocket  of  that  sacred  volume  whose  precepts  he  so 
highly  valued,  and  to  whose  inspired  pages  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  constantly  referring.  For  twenty  months 
however,  he  was  obliged  to  resort  to  his  slate  and 
pencil  for  the  expression  of  his  thoughts  or  wishes, 
which,  to  one  of  his  conversational  abilities,  must  have 
proved  no  common  trial. 

From  Whitestone,  he  thus  wrote  to  a  friend  in  the 
summer  of  1827  :  "  There  is  a  time  for  all  things — and 
what  I  add,  I  add  with  seriousness  ;  that  to  feel  quiet, 


BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN   DYMOND.  XV. 

and  capable  of  enjoyment  amidst  trying  circumstances, 
is  one  amongst  the  great  items  of  goodness  for  which 
we  are  indebted  to  our  Creator.  Although  I  am  not 
always  cheery,  yet  I  have  a  happy  share  of  that 
chastened  comfort  which  is  perhaps  as  good  for  us  as 
more  brilliant  things."  In  a  letter  to  his  wife  in  1828, 
he  writes  :  "I  would  not  have  thee  cast  down,  for  I 
do  not  think  there  is  cause  for  being  so.  Not  that 
there  are  no  fears  and  no  sorrows,  but  none  that  are 
allowed  to  agitate  and  alarm  me,  for  myself  or  for  thee. 
As  to  the  matters  of  this  world,  I  sometimes  try  to 
leave  them.  To  live  a  day  at  a  time,  seems  our  present 
business  ;  without  over  anxiety  for  greater  enjoyment 
or  brighter  prospects,  in  temporals  or  spirituals  either." 

On  returning  to  his  home  at  Exeter,  he  assiduously 
continued  the  preparation  of  his  "Essays,"  a  great 
part  of  which,  as  well  as  his  "  Inquiry  into  the  accord- 
ancy  of  War  with  the  Principles  of  Christianity,"  were 
written  in  a  little  room  adjoining  his  shop,  subject  to 
frequent  interruptions  from  customers,  in  the  midst  of 
his  most  profound  and  engrossing  thoughts. 

Of  the  closing  days  of  Jonathan  Dymond,  whose  de- 
cease occurred  on  the  6th  of  Fifth  month,  1828,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-one,  his  father,  in  a  letter  to  Dr. 
Hancock,  writes  :  ' '  Through  the  merciful  regard  of 
our  Holy  Head  and  High  Priest,  I  believe  I  may 
venture  to  say  that  his  mind  was  kept  in  perfect  peace, 
and  that  he  was  favored  while  living  to  experience  a 
foretaste  of  that  state  of  blessedness  into  which  I  dare 
not  doubt  his  being  entered." 

The  year  1828  proved  one  of  sore  bereavement  to  the 
family  of  John  Dymond.  The  letter  from  him,  above 
referred  to,  records  the  death  of  his  daughter,  the  8th 
of  Third  mo.;  his  son  George,  the  24th of  Fourth  mo.; 
and  Jonathan  Dymond,  as  already  stated,  the  6th  of 
Fifth  mo.      ' '  So, ' '  the  stricken  father  continues,,  ' '  in 


XVI.  BIOGRAPHY  OF  JONATHAN   DYMOND. 

rather  less  than  two  months,  I  have  had  to  experience 
the  loss  of  three  of  my  children,  near  and  dear  to  me, 
not  only  by  the  ties  of  nature,  but  additionally  so,  as 
they  were  all  of  them  eminently  favored  with  the  prec- 
ious influence  of  Heavenly  love,  and  concerned  in  no 
ordinary  degree  to  live  in  the  fear  of  Him  who  called 
them  to  virtue,  and  who,  I  humbly  trust,  has  received 
them  into  glory." 

To  the  close  of  his  well-spent  life,  Jonathan  Dymond 
bore  with  remarkable  patience  and  serenity  the  suffer- 
ings and  privations  attending  his  failing  health.  He 
displayed  an  entire  resignation  to  the  Divine  will  and 
a  childlike  trust  in  his  Heavenly  Father,  while  he  was 
by  no  means  a  stranger  to  that  spiritual  communion 
with  God,  which  is  the  sacred  privilege  of  the  true 
Christian.  His  estimate  of  his  own  religious  attain- 
ments was  exceedingly  humble,  and  on  his  death-bed 
he  evidenced  a  deep  conviction  of  that  great  truth  re- 
ferred to  in  the  concluding  words  of  his  "  Essays," 
namely,  that  the  only  foundation  of  our  hope  for  eter- 
nity is  the  mercy  of  God,  "through  the  redemption 
that  is  in  Christ  Jesus. ' ' 

Note. — In  preparing  the  foregoing  sketch  the  compiler  has 
drawn  largely  upon,  and  used  freely,  a  brief  biography  of  Jona- 
than Dymond  which  precedes  the  American  edition  of  his 
Essays,  published  in  New  York,  in  1834.  The  passing  refer- 
ence to  his  wife,  Anna  Dymond,  is  taken  from  a  short  memo- 
rial contained  in  the  "  Annual  Monitor,"  for  1850. 


CONTENTS. 

ESSAY  I. 
PART  I.— PRINCIPLES  OF  MORALITY. 

PAGE 

CHAP.  I.     MORAL  OBLIGATION i 

Foundation  of  moral  obligation. 

CHAP.  II.  STANDARD  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 2 

The  will  of  God— Notices  of  theories— The  communication  of 
the  will  of  God — The  supreme  authority  of  the  expressed 
will  of  God— Causes  of  its  practical  rejection— The  principles 
of  expediency  fluctuating  and  inconsistent— Application  of 
the  principles  of  expediency — Difficulties— Liability  to  abuse 
— Pagans. 

The  will  'of  God 3 

The  communication  of  the  will  of  God 6 

CHAP.  III.    SUBORDINATE  STANDARDS  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG    21 
Foundation  and  limits  of  the  authority  of  subordinate  moral 
rules. 

CHAP.  IV.     COLLATERAL  OBSERVATIONS 23 

Identical  authority  of  moral  and  religious  obligations...    23 
Identical    authority    of    moral    and    religious    obligations — The 
Divine  attributes— Of  deducing  rules  of  human  duty  from  a  con- 
sideration of  the  attributes  of  God — Virtue:  "  Virtue  is  confor- 
mity with  the  standard  of  rectitude  "—Motives  of  action. 

The  Divine  attributes 25 

Virtue 27 

CHAP.  V.    SCRIPTURE 29 

The  morality  of  the  Patriarchal,  Mosaic  and  Christian  dispensa- 
tions— Their  moral  requisitions  not  always  coincident — Supre- 
macy of  the  Christian  morality— Of  variations  in  the  moral 
law — Mode  of  applying  the  precepts  of  Scripture  to  questions 
of  duty— No  formal  moral  system  in  Scripture— Criticism  of 
Biblical  morality — Of  particular  precepts  and  general  rules. 
Matt.  vii.  12.— 1  Cor  x.  31. — Rom.  lii.  8.— Benevolence,  as  it  is 
proposed  in  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

The  morality  of  the   Patriarchal,   Mosaic  and  Christian 

dispensations 29 

Mode  of  applying  the  precepts  of  Scripture  to  questions 

OF   DUTY 37 

Benevolence,  as    it    is    proposed  in   the   Christian    Scrip- 
tures     49 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

CHAP.  VI.  THE   IMMEDIATE   COMMUNICATION  OF  THE  WILL 

OF  GOD , 52 

Conscience — Its  nature — Its  authority— Review  of  opinions  re- 
specting a  moral  sense— Bishop  Butler — Lord  Bacon— Locke — 
Southey— Adam  Smith— Paley— Milton— Judge  Hale— Marcus 
Antoninus— Epictetus — Seneca— Paul— That  every  human  being 
possesses  a  moral  law— Pagans— Gradations  of  light— Prophecy 
— The  immediate  communication  of  the  Divine  will  perpetual 
— Of  national  vices  :  Infanticide  :  Duelling— Of  savage  life. 

Section  I.    Conscience,  its  nature  and  authority 54 

Review  of  opinions  respecting  a  moral  sense 61 

The  immediate  communication  of  the  will  of  God 68 


ESSAY  I. 

PART    II.— SUBORDINATE    MEANS    OF    DISCOVERING 
THE  DIVINE  WILL. 

CHAP.  I.     THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND 82 

Its  authority— Limits  to  its  authority— Morality  sometimes  pro- 
hibits what  the  law  permits. 

CHAP.  II.  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE 89 

Its  authority— Limits  to  its  authority— Obligations  resulting  from 
the  rights  of  nature — Incorrect  ideas  attached  to  the  word 
nature. 

CHAP.  III.     UTILITY 96 

Obligations  resulting  from  expediency— Limits  to  these  obliga- 
tions. 

CHAP.  IV.     THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS.— THE  LAW  OF  HONOR 102 

Section  I.    The  law  of  nations 102 

Obligations  and  authority  of  the  law  of  nations— Its  abuses,  and 
the  limits  of  its  authority — Treaties. 

Section  II.    The  law  of  honor 108 

Authority  of  the  law  of  honor— Its  character. 


ESSAY  II. 
PRIVATE  RIGHTS  AND  OBLIGATIONS. 

CHAP.  I.     RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS in 

Factitious  semblances  of  devotion— Religious  conversation  :  Sab- 
batical institutions— Non-sanctity  of  days— Of  temporal  em- 
ployments :    traveling  :     stage-coaches  :     "  Sunday     papers  : " 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

amusements — Holy  days— Ceremonial  institutions  and  devo- 
tional formularies — Utility  of  forms— Forms  of  prayer — Extem- 
pore prayer — Scepticism — Motives  to  scepticism. 

Sabbatical  institutions 117 

Ceremonial  institutions  and  devotional  formularies 123 

CHAP.  II.     PROPERTY 133 

Foundation  of  the  right  to  property— Insolvency  :  perpetual  obli- 
gation to  pay  debts  :  reform  of  public  opinion  :  examples  of 
integrity— Wills,  legatees,  heirs  :  informal  wills  :  intestates- 
Minor's  debts— A  wife's  debts— Bills  of  exchange— Unjust  de- 
fendants—Privateers—Confiscations—Insurance—Settlements— 
Houses  of  infamy — Literary  property — Rewards. 

CHAP.  III.     INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY 156 

Accumulation  of  wealth:  its  proper  limits— Provision  for  child- 
ren :  "  keeping  up  the  family." 

CHAP.  IV.     LITIGATION— ARBITRATION 164 

Practice  of  early  Christians — Evils  of  litigation— Efficiency  of 
arbitration. 

CHAP.  V.     THE   MORALITY  OF  LEGAL  PRACTICE 170 

Complexity  of  law— Professional  untruths— Defences  of  legal 
practice— Effects  of  legal  practice  :  seduction  :  theft :  pecula- 
tion—Pleading—The duties  of  the  profession— Effects  of  legal 
practice  on  the  profession,  and  on  the  public. 

CHAP.  VI.     PROMISES— LIES 188 

Promises — Definition  of  a  promise — Parole — Extorted  promises 

— John  Fletcher. 
Lies— Milton's  definition— Lies  in  war  :  to  robbers  :  to  lunatics  : 

to   the    sick  — Hyperbole— Irony— Complimentary    untruths— 

"Not  at  home." 

CHAP.  VII      OATHS 201 

Their  Moral  Character— Their  Efficacy  as  Securities  of 

Veracity— Their  Effects 211 

A  Curse— Immorality  of  oaths— Oaths  of  the  ancient  Jews— Milton 
— Paley— The  High  Priest's  adjuration— Early  Christians— In- 
efficacy  of  oaths — Motives  to  veracity — Religious  sanctions  :  . 
public  opinion — Legal  penalties— Oaths  in  evidence  :  parlia- 
mentary evidence  :  courts  martial— The  United  States— Effects 
of  oaths  :  falsehood — General  obligations. 

CHAP.  VIII.     IMMORAL  AGENCY 223 

Publication  and  circulation  of  books — Seneca — Circulating  libra- 
ries—Prosecutions— Political  affairs. 

CHAP.    IX.     THE  INFLUENCE  OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON  PUBLIC 

NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY 231 

Public  notions  of  morality — Errors  of  public  opinion :  their 
effects— Duelling — Glory  —  Military  virtues — Military  talent — 
Bravery — Courage — Patriotism  not  the  soldier's  motive — Mili- 
tary fame — Public  opinion  of  unchastity  :  in  women  :  in  men — 
Power  of  character— Character— Character  in  legal  men— Fame 
—Faults  of  great  men— The  press— Newspapers— History  :  its 
defects :  its  power. 

CHAP.  X.     MORAL  EDUCATION 262 

Union  of  moral  principle  with  the  affections— Society— Morality 
of  the  ancient  classics— The  supply  of  motives  to  virtue — Con- 
science— Subjugation  of  the  will— Knowledge  of  our  own  minds 
— Offices  of  public  worship. 

CHAP.  XL     EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE 277 

Advantages  of  extended  education — Infant  schools — Habits  of 
enquiry. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

CHAP.  XII.     AMUSEMENTS 283 

The  Stage — Religious  amusements — Masquerades — Field-sports — 
The  turf— Boxing— Wrestling— -Opinions  of  posterity — Popular 
amusements  needless. 

CHAP.  XIII.     SUICIDE 291 

Unmanliness  of  suicide— Forbidden  in  the  New  Testament— Its 
folly. 

CHAP.  XIV.     RIGHTS  OF  SELF-DEFENCE 295 

These  rights  not  absolute— Their  limits— Personal  attack— Pre- 
servation of  property — Much  resistance  lawful— Effects  of  for- 
bearance— Sharpe — Barclay — Ellwood. 


ESSAY  III. 
POLITICAL  RIGHTS  AND  OBLIGATIONS. 

CHAP.  I.     PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  TRUTH,  AND  OF  POLIT- 
ICAL RECTITUDE 308 

I.  "  Political  power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  is  possessed 
by  consent  of  the  community  " — Governors,  officers  of  the  pub- 
lic— Transfer  of  their  rights  by  a  whole  people — The  people 
hold  the  sovereign  power— Right  of  Governors— A  conciliating 
system. 

II.  "Political  power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  subserves 
the  welfare  of  the  community" — Interference  with  other  na- 
tions—Present  expedients  for  present  occasions — Proper  busi- 
ness of  governments. 

III.  'Political  power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  sub- 
serves the  welfare  of  the  community  by  means  which  the  moral 
law  permits" — The  moral  law  alike  binding  on  nations  and 
individuals — Deviation  from  rectitude  impolitic. 

I.  "Political   power  is  rightly  possessed  only  when   it 

IS  POSSESSED   BY   CONSENT   OF   THE  COMMUNITY  " v..   309 

II.  "Political    power   is   rightly   exercised  only  when 

IT  SUBSERVES    THE   WELFARE   OF   THE  COMMUNITY" 314 

III.  "  Political    power  is   rightly  exercised  only  when 

IT  SUBSERVES   THE   WELFARE   OF   THE  COMMUNITY    BY  MEANS 
WHICH   THE    MORAL    LAW   PERMITS" 3l8 

CHAP.  II.     CIVIL  LIBERTY 324 

Loss  of  liberty — War — Useless  laws. 

CHAP.  III.     CIVIL  OBEDIENCE 327 

Expediency  of  obedience — Obligations  to  obedience — Extent  of 
the  duty — Resistance  to  the  civil  power — Obedience  may  be 
withdrawn  —  King  James — America  —  Non-compliance —  Inter- 
ference of  the  Magistrate. 

CHAP.  IV.     POLITICAL  INFLUENCE 338 

Effects  of  influence— Incongruity  of  public  notions— Patronage- 
Dependency  on  the  mother  country. 

CHAP.  V.     MORAL  LEGISLATION 342 

Duties  of  a  ruler— The  two  objects  of  moral  legislation— Educa- 
tion of  the  people— Abrogation  of  bad  laws. 


CONTENTS.  XXI. 


PAGE 

CHAP.  VI.     OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OF  PUNISHMENT 346 

The  three  objects  of  punishment:— Reformation  of  the  offender; — 
Example:— Restitution— Punishment  may  be  increased  as  well 
as  diminished. 

CHAP.  VII.     PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH 351 

Of  the  three  objects  of  punishment  the  punishment  of  death  re- 
gards but  one — Reformation  of  minor  offenders  :  greater  crimi- 
nals neglected — Capital  punishments  not  efficient  as  examples 
— Public  executions — Paul — Grotius — Murder — The  punishment 
of  death  irrevocable — Rousseau — Recapitulation. 

CHAP.     VIII.     RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS 365 

The  primitive  church — The  established  church  of  Ireland — Amer- 
ica— Advantages  and  disadvantages  of  established  churches — 
Alliance  of  a  church  with  the  state — Persecution  generally  the 
growth  of  religious  establishments— State  religions  injurious  to 
the  civil  welfare  of  a  people— Voluntary  payment. 

CHAP.  IX.     PATRIOTISM 387 

Patriotism  as  it  is  viewed  by  Christianity — A  patriotism  which  is 
opposed  to  general  benignity— Patriotism  not  the  soldier's 
motive. 

CHAP.  X.    WAR 392 

Causes  of  war 395 

Want  of  enquiry  :  indifference  to  human  misery  :  national  irrita- 
bility :  interest :  secret  motives  of  cabinets :  ideas  of  glory- 
Foundation  of  military  glory. 

Consequences  of  war 406 

Destruction  of  human  life  :  taxation  :  moral  depravity  :  familiar- 
ity with  plunder:  implicit  submission  to  superiors  :  resignation 
of  moral  agency  :  Bondage  and  degradation — Loan  of  armies — 
Effects  on  the  community. 

LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR 420 

Influence  of  habit— Of  appealing  to  antiquity— The  Christian 
Scriptures — Subjects  of  Christ's  benediction — Matt.  xxvi.  52 — 
The  apostles  and  evangelists — The  centurion — Cornelius — Si- 
lence not  a  proof  of  approbation — Luke  xxii.  36 — John  the  Bap- 
tist—Negative evidence— Prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament— 
The  requisitions  of  Christianity  of  present  obligation— Primi- 
tive Christians — Example  and  testimony  of  early  Christians — 
Christian  soldiers — Wars  of  the  Jews — Duties  of  individuals  and 
nations — Offensive  and  defensive  war — Wars  always  aggressive 
— Paley — War  wholly  forbidden. 

OF    THE     PROBABLE     AND     PRACTICAL    EFFECTS  OF    ADHERING  TO 

THE   MORAL  LAW   IN   RESPECT  TO  WAR 458 

Quakers  in  America  and  Ireland — Colonization  of  Pennsylvania- 
Unconditional  reliance  on  Providence — Recapitulation— Gen- 
eral observations. 

CONCLUSION 47c 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICES. 


Of  the  two  causes  of  our  deviations  from  rectitude — 
want  of  knowledge  and  want  of  virtue — the  latter  is  un- 
doubtedly the  more  operative.  Want  of  knowledge  is, 
however,  sometimes  a  cause  ;  nor  can  this  be  any  subject 
of  wonder  when  it  is  recollected  in  what  manner  many  of 
our  notions  of  right  and  wrong  are  acquired.  From  in- 
fancy, every  one  is  placed  in  a  sort  of  moral  school,  in 
which  those  with  whom  he  associates,  or  of  whom  he 
hears,  are  the  teachers.  That  the  learner  in  such  a  school 
will  often  be  taught  amiss,  is  plain. — So  that  we  want  in- 
formation respecting  our  duties.  To  supply  this  informa- 
tion is  an  object  of  moral  philosophy,  and  is  attempted  in 
the  present  work. 

When  it  is  considered  by  what  excellences  the  existing 
treatises  on  moral  philosophy  are  recommended,  there  can 
remain  but  one  reasonable  motive  for  adding  yet  another 
— the  belief  that  these  treatises  have  not  exhibited  the 
principles  and  enforced  the  obligations  of  morality  in  all 
their  perfection  and  purity.  Perhaps  the  frank  expression 
of  this  belief  is  not  inconsistent  with  that  deference  which 
it  becomes  every  man  to  feel  when  he  addresses  the  pub- 
lic ;  because,  not  to  have  entertained  such  a  belief,  were 
to  have  possessed  no  reason  for  writing.  The  desire  of 
supplying  the  deficiency,  if  deficiency  there  be  ;  of  exhib- 
iting a  true  and  authoritative  standard  of  rectitude,  and 
of  estimating  the  moral  character  of  human  actions  by  an 
appeal  to  that  standard,  is  the  motive  which  has  induced 
the  composition  of  these  essays. 

In  the  First  Essay  the  writer  has  attempted  to  investi- 
gate the  principles  of  morality.  In  which  term  is  here 
included,  first,  the  ultimate  standard  of  right  and  wrong; 
and,  secondly,  those  subordinate  rules  to  which  we  are 
authorized  to  apply  for  the  direction  of  our  conduct  in 
life.     In   these  investigations  he  has  been  solicitous  to 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTICES.  XX111. 

avoid  any  approach  to  curious  or  metaphysical  enquiry. 
He  has  endeavored  to  act  upon  the  advice  given  by  Tindal 
the  Reformer,  to  his  friend  John  Frith  :  ' '  Pronounce  not 
or  define  of  hid  secrets,  or  things  that  neither  help  nor 
hinder  whether  it  be  so  or  no  ;  but  stick  you  stiffly  and 
stubbornly  in  earnest  and  necessary  things. " 

In  the  Second  Essay  these  principles  of  morality  are 
applied  in  the  determination  of  various  questions  of  per- 
sonal and  relative  duty.  In  making  this  application,  it 
has  been  far  from  the  writer's  desire  to  deliver  a  system  of 
morality.  Of  the  unnumbered  particulars  to  which  this 
essay  might  have  been  extended,  he  has  therefore  made  a 
selection  ;  and  in  making  it,  has  chosen  those  subjects 
which  appear  peculiarly  to  need  the  enquiry,  either  be- 
cause the  popular  or  philosophical  opinions  respecting 
them  appeared  to  be  unsound,  or  because  they  were  com- 
monly little  adverted  to  in  the  practice  of  life.  Form  has 
been  sacrificed  to  utility.  Many  great  duties  have  been 
passed  over,  since  no  one  questions  their  obligation  ;  nor 
has  the  author  so  little  consulted  the  pleasure  of  the 
reader  as  to  expatiate  upon  duties  simply  because  they 
are  great.  The  reader  will  also  regard  the  subjects  that 
have  been  chosen  as  selected,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of 
elucidating  the  subjects  themselves,  but  as  furnishing 
illustration  of  the  general  principles — as  the  compiler  of  a 
book  of  mathematics  proposes  a  variety  of  examples,  not 
merely  to  discover  the  solution  of  the  particular  problem, 
but  to  familiarize  the  application  of  his  general  rule. 

Of  the  Third  Essay,  in  which  some  of  the  great  ques- 
tions of  political  rectitude  have  been  examined,  the  sub- 
jects are  in  themselves  sufficiently  important.  The  appli- 
cation of  sound  and  pure  moral  principles  to  questions  of 
government,  of  legislation,  of  the  administration  of  jus- 
tice, or  of  religious  establishments,  is  manifestly  of  great 
interest ;  and  the  interest  is  so  much  the  greater,  because 
these  subjects  have  usually  been  examined,  as  the  writer 
conceives,  by  other  and  very  different  standards. 

The  reader  will  probably  find,  in  each  of  these  essays, 
some  principles  or  some  conclusions  respecting  human 
duties  to  which  he  has  not  been  accustomed — some  opin- 
ions called  in  question  which  he  has  habitually  regarded 
as  being  indisputably  true,  and  some  actions  exhibited  as 
forbidden  by  morality  which  he  has  supposed  to  be  lawful 
and  right.  In  such  cases  I  must  hope  for  his  candid  in- 
vestigation of  the  truth,  and  that  he  will  not  reject  con- 
clusions but  by  the  detection  of  inaccuracy  in  the  reason- 


XXIV.  INTRODUCTORY   NOTICES. 

ings  from  which  they  are  deduced.  I  hope  he  will  not 
find  himself  invited  to  alter  his  opinions  or  his  conduct 
without  being  shown  why ;  and  if  he  is  conclusively 
shown  this,  that  he  will  not  reject  truth  because  it  is  new 
or  unwelcome. 

With  respect  to  the  present  influence  of  the  principles 
which  these  essays  illustrate,  the  author  will  feel  no  dis- 
appointment if  it  is  not  great.  It  is  not  upon  the  expec- 
tation of  such  influence  that  his  motive  is  founded  or  his 
hope  rests.  His  motive  is,  to  advocate  truth  without  ref- 
erence to  its  popularity  ;  and  his  hope  is,  to  promote  by 
these  feeble  exertions,  an  approximation  to  that  state  of 
purity,  which  he  believes  it  is  the  design  of  God  shall 
eventually  beautify  and  dignify  the  condition  of  mankind. 


ESSAY  I. 

PART  I. 

Principles  of  Morality. 


CHAPTER  I. 

MORAL  OBLIGATION. 
Foundation  of  Moral  Obligation. 

ThkrK  is  little  hope  of  proposing  a  definition  of 
moral  obligation  which  shall  be  satisfactory  to  every 
reader  ;  partly  because  the  phrase  is  the  representative 
of  different  notions  in  individual  minds.  No  single 
definition  can,  it  is  evident,  represent  various  notions  ; 
and  there  are  probably  no  means  by  which  the  notions 
of  individuals  respecting  moral  obligation  can  be  ad- 
justed to  one  standard.  Accordingly,  whilst  attempts 
to  define  it  have  been  very  numerous,  all  probably  have 
been  unsatisfactory  to  the  majority  of  mankind. 

Happily  this  question,  like  many  others  upon  which 
the  world  is  unable  to  agree,  is  of  little  practical  im- 
portance. Many  who  dispute  about  the  definition, 
coincide  in  their  judgments  of  what  we  are  obliged  to 
do  and  to  forbear  ;  and  so  long  as  the  individual  knows 
that  he  is  actually  the  subject  of  moral  obligation,  and 
actually  responsible  to  a  superior  power,  it  is  not  of  much 
consequence  whether  he  can  critically  explain  in  what 
moral  obligation  consists. 

The  writer  of  these  pages,  therefore,  makes  no  attempts 
at  strictness  of  definition.  It  is  sufficient  for  his  pur- 
pose that  man  is  under  an  obligation  to  obey  his  Creator; 


2  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT   AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY   I. 

and  if  any  one  curiously  asks  "  Why?" — he  answers, 
that  o?ie  reason  at  least  is,  that  the  Deity  possesses  the 
power,  and  evinces  the  intention,  to  call  the  human 
species  to  account  for  their  actions,  and  to  punish  or 
reward  them. 

There  may  be,  and  I  believe  there  are,  higher  grounds 
upon  which  a  sense  of  moral  obligation  may  be  founded; 
such  as  the  love  of  goodness  for  its  own  sake,  or  love 
and  gratitude  to  God  for  his  beneficence  :  nor  is  it  un- 
reasonable to  suppose  that  such  grounds  of  obligation 
are  especially  approved  by  the  universal  Parent  of 
mankind. 


CHAPTER  II. 
STANDARD  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG. 

The  Will  of  God — Notices  of  Theories  —The  communication  of 
the  Will  of  God — The  supreme  authority  of  the  expressed 
Will  of  God — Causes  of  its  practical  rejection — The  principles 
of  expediency  fluctuating  and  inconsistent — Application  of 
the  principles  of  expediency — Difficulties — Liability  to  abuse — 
Pagans. 

It  is  obvious  that  to  him  who  seeks  the  knowledge 
of  his  duty,  the  first  inquiry  is,  What  is  the  rule  of 
duty?  What  is  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong? 
Most  men,  or  most  of  those  with  whom  we  are  con- 
cerned, agree  that  this  standard  consists  in  the  will  of 
God.  But  here  the  coincidence  of  opinion  stops.  Various 
and  very  dissimilar  answers  are  given  to  the  question, 
How  is  the  will  of  God  to  be  discovered  ?  These  dif- 
ferences lead  to  differing  conclusions  respecting  human 
duty.  All  the  proposed  modes  of  discovering  his  will 
cannot  be  the  best  nor  the  right ;  and  those  which  are 
not  right  are  likely  to  lead  to  erroneous  conclusions 
respecting  what  his  will  is. 


CHAP.  IlJ.  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT   AND  WRONG.  3 

It  becomes  therefore  a  question  of  very  great  inter- 
est— How  is  the  will  of  God  to  be  discovered  ?  and  if 
there  should  appear  to  be  more  sources  than  one  from 
which  it  may  be  deduced — What  is  that  source  which, 
in  our  investigatipns,  we  are  to  regard  as  paramount  to 
every  other  ? 

THE  WILL  OF  GOD. 

When  we  say  that  most  men  agree  in  referring  to  the 
will  of  God  as  the  standard  of  rectitude,  we  do  not 
mean  that  all  those  who  have  framed  systems  of  moral 
philosophy  have  set  out  wTith  this  proposition  as  their 
fundamental  rule;  but  we  mean  that  the  majority  of  man- 
kind do  really  believe  (with  whatever  indistinctness) 
that  they  ought  to  obey  the  will  of  God  ;  and  that,  as 
it  respects  the  systems  of  philosophical  men,  they  will 
commonly  be  found  to  involve,  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  same  belief.  He  who  says  that  the  ' '  Understand- 
ing "*  is  to  be  our  moral  guide,  is  not  far  from  saying 
that  we  are  to  be  guided  by  the  Divine  will  ;  because 
the  understanding,  however  we  define  it,  is  the  offspring 
of  the  Divine  counsels  and  power.  When  Adam  Smith 
resolves  moral  obligation  into  propriety  arising  from 
feelings  of  "  Sympathy,  "f  the  conclusion  is  not  very 
different ;  for  these  feelings  are  manifestly  the  result  of 
that  constitution  which  God  gave  to  man.  When 
Bishop  Butler  says  that  we  ought  to  live  according  to 
nature,  and  make  conscience  the  judge  whether  we  do 
so  live  or  not,  a  kindred  observation  arises ;  for  the 
existence  and  nature  of  conscience  must  be  referred 
ultimately  to  the  Divine  will.  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke's 
philosophy  is,  that  moral  obligation  is  to  be  referred  to 
the  eternal  and  necessary  differences  of  things.  This 
might  appear  less  obviously  to  have  respect  to  the  Divine 

*  Dr.  Price  :  Review  of  Principal  Questions  in  Morals. 
|  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments. 


4  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

will,  yet  Dr.  Clarke  himself  subsequently  says,  that 
the  duties  which  these  eternal  differences  of  things  im- 
pose, "  are  also  the  express  and  unalterable  will,  com- 
mand and  law  of  God  to  his  creatures,  which  he  cannot 
but  expect  should  be  observed  by  them  in  obedience  to 
his  supreme  authority."!  Very  similar  is  the  practical 
doctrine  of  Wollaston.  His  theory  is,  that  moral  good 
and  evil  consist  in  a  conformity  or  disagreement  with 
truth — "in  treating  every  thing  as  being  what  it  is." 
But  then  he  says,  that  to  act  by  this  rule  ' '  must  be 
agreeable  to  the  will  of  God,  and  if  so,  the  contrary 
must  be  disagreeable  to  it,  and,  since  there  must  be 
perfect  rectitude  in  his  will,  certainly  wrong.  "§  It  is 
the  same  with  Dr.  Paley  in  his  far-famed  doctrine  of 
Expediency.  "It  is  the  utility  of  any  action  alone 
which  constitutes  the  obligation  of  it ; "  but  this  very 
obligation  is  deduced  from  the  Divine  Benevolence ; 
from  which  it  is  attempted  to  show,  that  a  regard  to 
utility  is  enforced  by  the  will  of  God.  Nay,  he  says 
expressly,  "  Every  duty  is  a  duty  towards  God,  since 
it  is  his  will  which  makes  it  a  duty."|| 

Now  there  is  much  value  in  these  testimonies, 
direct  or  indirect,  to  the  truth — that  the  will  of  God  is 
the  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  The  indirect  tes- 
timonies are  perhaps  the  more  valuable  of  the  two.  He 
who  gives  undesigned  evidence  in  favor  of  a  proposition, 
is  less  liable  to  suspicion  in  his  motives. 

But,  whilst  we  regard  these  testimonies,  and  such  as 
these,  as  containing  satisfactory  evidence  that  the  will 
of  God  is  our  moral  law,  the  intelligent  enquirer  will 
perceive  that  many  of  the  proposed  theories  are  likely 
to  lead  to  uncertain  and  unsatisfactory  conclusions 
respecting  what  that  will  requires.      They  prove  that 

%  Evidence  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion. 
I  Religion  of  Nature  Delineated. 
||  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy. 


CHAP.  II.]         STANDARD, OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  5 

His  will  is  the  standard,  but  they  do  not  clearly  in- 
form us  how  we  shall  bring  our  actions  into  juxtaposi- 
tion with  it. 

One  proposes  the  Understanding  as  the  means  ;  but 
every  observer  perceives  that  the  understandings  of 
men  are  often  contradictory  in  their  decisions.  Indeed 
many  of  those  who  now  think  their  understandings 
dictate  the  rectitude  of  a  given  action,  will  find  that 
the  understandings  of  the  intelligent  pagans  of  anti- 
quity came  to  very  different  conclusions. 

A  second  proposes  Sympathy,  regulated  indeed  and 
restrained,  but  still  sympathy.  However  ingenious  a 
philosophical  system  may  be,  I  believe  that  good  men 
find,  in  the  practice  of  life,  that  these  emotions  are  fre- 
quently unsafe,  and  sometimes  erroneous  guides  of 
their  conduct.  Besides,  the  emotions  are  to  be  regu- 
lated and  restrained ;  which  of  itself  intimates  the 
necessity  of  a  regulating  and  restraining,  that  is,  of  a 
superior  power. 

To  say  we  should  act  according  to  the  ' '  eternal  and 
necessary  differences  of  things, "  is  to  advance  a  propo- 
sition which  nine  persons  out  of  ten  do  not  understand, 
and  of  course  cannot'  adopt  in  practice  ;  and  of  those 
who  do  understand  it,  perhaps  an  equal  majority  can- 
not apply  it,  with  even  tolerable  facility,  to  the  con- 
cerns of  life.  Why  indeed  should  a  writer  propose 
these  eternal  differences,  if  he  acknowledges  that  the 
rules  of  conduct  which  result  from  them  are  ' '  the  ex- 
press will  and  command  of  God  ? ' ' 

To  the  system  of  a  fourth,  which  says  that  virtue 
consists  in  a  "  conformity  of  our  actions  with  truth," 
the  objection  presents  itself — what  is  truth  ?  or  how,  in 
the  complicated  affairs  of  life,  and  in  the  moment  per- 
haps of  sudden  temptation,  shall  the  individual  discover 
what  truth  is  ? 

Similar  difficulties  arise  in  applying  the  doctrine  of 

y***V^  R  A?PS*V 

J  OF  THK  ^^ 

f  UNIVERSITY  J 


6  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT   AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

utility  in  "adjusting  our  actions  so  as  to  promote,  in 
the  greatest  degree,  the  happiness  of  mankind."  It  is 
obviously  difficult  to  apply  this  doctrine  in  practice. 
The  welfare  of  mankind  depends  upon  circumstances 
which,  if  it  were  possible,  it  is  not  easy  to  foresee.  In- 
deed in  many  of  those  conjunctures  in  which  important 
decisions  must  instantly  be  made,  the  computation  of 
tendencies  to  general  happiness  is  wholly  impracticable. 

Besides  these  objections  which  apply  to  the  systems 
separately,  there  is  one  which  applies  to  them  all — 
That  they  do  not  refer  us  directly  to  the  will  of  God. 
They  interpose  a  medium  ;  and  it  is  the  inevitable  ten- 
dency of  all  such  mediums  to  render  the  truth  un- 
certain. They  depend  not  indeed  upon  hearsay 
evidence,  but  upon  something  of  which  the  tendency 
is  the  same.  They  seek  the  will  of  God  not  from 
positive  evidence  but  by  implication  ;  and  we  repeat 
the  truth,  that  every  medium  that  is  interposed  between 
the  Divine  will  and  our  estimates  of  it,  diminishes  the 
probability  that  we  shall  estimate  it  rightly. 

These  are  considerations  which,  antecedently  to  all 
others,  would  prompt  us  to  seek  the  will  of  God  di- 
rectly and  immediately ;  and  it  is  evident  that  this 
direct  and  immediate  knowledge  of  the  Divine  will, 
can  in  no  other  manner  be  possessed  than  by  his  own 
communication  of  it. 

THE  COMMUNICATION  OF  THE  WILL  OF  GOD. 

That  a  direct  communication  of  the  will  of  the 
Deity  respecting  the  conduct  which  mankind  shall  pur- 
sue, must  be  very  useful  to  them,  can  need  little  proof. 
It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  they  who  have  had  no 
access  to  the  written  revelations,  have  commonly  enter- 
tained very  imperfect  views  of  right  and  wrong.  What 
Dr.  Johnson  says  of  the  ancient  epic  poets,  will  apply 
generally  to  pagan  philosophers  :    They    ' '  were   very 


CHAP.  II.]  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  7 

unskilful  teachers  of  virtue, ' '    because    ' '  they   wanted 
the  light  of  revelation."     Yet  these  men  were  inquis- 
itive and  acute,   and  it  may  be  supposed  they  would 
have  discovered  moral  truth  if  sagacity  and  inquisitive- 
ness  had   been  sufficient   for   the  task.        But   it    is 
unquestionable,  that  there  are  many  plowmen  in  this 
country  who  possess  more  accurate  knowledge  of  mor- 
ality than  all  the  sages  of  antiquity.  We  do  not  indeed 
sufficiently  consider  for  how  much  knowledge  respecting 
the  Divine  will  we  are  indebted  to  his  own  commun- 
ication of  it.     "  Many  arguments,  many  truths,  both 
moral  and  religious,  which  appear  to  us  the  products  of 
our  understandings  and  the  fruits  of  ratiocination,  are 
in  reality  nothing  more  than  emanations  from  Scripture; 
rays  of  the  gospel  imperceptibly  transmitted,  and  as  it 
were  conveyed  to  our  minds  in  a  side  light.*     Of  L,ord 
Herbert's  book,  De   Veritate,  which  was  designed    to 
disprove  the  validity  of  revelation,  it  is  observed  by 
the  editor  of  his  "  L,ife,"  that  it  is  "a  book  so  strongly 
embued  with  the  light  of    revelation  relative  to    the 
moral  virtues  and  a  future  life,  that  no  man  ignorant  of 
the  Scriptures  or  of  the  knowledge  derived  from  them, 
could  have  written  it."f     A  modern  system  of   moral 
philosophy  is  founded  upon  the  duty  of  doing  good  to 
man,  because  it  appears,  from  benevolence  of  God  him- 
self, that  such  is  His  will.    Did  those  philosophers  then, 
who  had  no  access  to  the  written  expression  of  his  will, 
discover  with  any  distinctness  this  seemingly  obvious 
benevolence  of  God?   No.       "The  heathens  failed    of 
drawing  that  deduction  relating  to  morality,  to  which, 
as  we  should  now  judge,  the  most  obvious  parts   of 
natural  knowledge,   and  such   as  certaintly   obtained 
among  them,  were  sufficient  to  lead  them,  namely,  the 

*Balguy.     Tracts  Moral  and  Theological : — Second  letter  to 
a  Deist. 

f  4th  Ed.,  p.  336. 


8  STANDARD  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

the  goodness  of  God" \ — We  are,  I  say,  much  more 
indebted  to  revelation  for  moral  light,  than  we  com- 
monly acknowledge  or  indeed  commonly  perceive. 

But  if  in  fact  we  obtain  from  the  communication  of 
the  will  of  God,  knowledge  of  wider  extent  and  of  a 
higher  order  than  was  otherwise  attainable,  is  it  not  an 
argument  that  the  communicated  will  should  be  our 
supreme  law,  and  that,  if  any  of  the  inferior  means 
of  acquiring  moral  knowledge  lead  to  conclusions 
in  opposition  to  that  will,  they  ought  to  give  way  to 
its  higher  authority? 

Indeed  the  single  circumstance  that  an  Omniscient 
Being,  and  who  also  is  the  Judge  of  mankind,  has  ex- 
pressed his  will  respecting  their  conduct,  appears  a 
sufficient  evidence  that  they  should  regard  that  expres- 
sion as  their  paramount  rule.  They  cannot  elsewhere 
refer  to  so  high  an  authority.  If  the  expression  of  his 
will  is  not  the  ultimate  standard  of  right  and  wrong, 
it  can  only  be  on  the  supposition  that  his  will  itself  is 
not  the  ultimate  standard ;  for  no  other  means  of 
ascertaining  that  will  can  be  equally  perfect  and 
authoritative. 

Another  consideration  is  this,  that  if  we  examine 
those  sacred  volumes  in  which  the  written  expression 
of  the  Divine  will  is  contained,  we  find  that  they 
habitually  proceed  upon  the  supposition  that  the  will 
of  God  being  expressed,  is  for  that  reason  our  final  law. 
They  do  not  set  about  formal  proofs  that  we  ought  to 
sacrifice  inferior  rules  to  it,  but  conclude,  as  of  course, 
that  if  the  will  of  God  is  made  known,  human  duty  is 
ascertained.  It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  the  Scrip- 
tures would'  refer  to  any  other  foundation  of  virtue  than 
the  true  one,  and  certain  it  is  that  the  foundation  to 
which  they  constantly  do  refer  is  the  will  of   God."  % 

f  Pearson  :  Remarks  on  the  Theory  of  Morals. 
%  Pearson  :  Theory  of  Mor.  c.  I. 


CHAP.  II.]  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  9 

Nor  is  this  all :  they  refer  to  the  expression  of  the  will 
of  God.  We  hear  nothing  of  any  other  ultimate  au- 
thority— nothing  of  "  sympathy  " — nothing  of  the 
"  eternal  fitness  of  things  " — nothing  of  the  "produc- 
tion of  the  greatest  sum  of  enjoyment;' ' — but  we  hear, 
repeatedly,  constantly,  of  the  will  of  God  ;  of  the 
voice  of  God  ;  of  the  commands  of  God.  To  be  obe- 
dient unto  his  voice,"*  is  the  condition  of  favor.  To 
hear  the  "sayings  of  Christ  and  do  them,"f  is  the 
means  of  obtaining  his  approbation.  To  '  'fear  God 
and  keep  his  commandments,  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man." %  Even  superior  intelligences  are  described  as 
"  doing  his  commandments,  hearkening  unto  the  voice 
of  Uis  word."%  In  short,  the  whole  system  of  moral 
legislation,  as  it  is  exhibited  in  Scripture,  is  a  system 
founded  upon  authority.  The  propriety,  the  utility 
of  the  requisitions  are  not  made  of  importance.  That 
which  is  made  of  importance  is,  the  authority  of  the 
Being  who  legislates.  "Thussaith  the  Iyord,"  is  re- 
garded as  constituting  a  sufficient  and  a  final  law.  So 
also  it  is  with  the  moral  instructions  of  Christ.  ' '  He 
put  the  truth  of  what  he  taught  upon  authority."  || 
In  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  I  say  unto  you,  is  proposed 
as  the  sole,  and  sufficient,  and  ultimate  ground  of  obli- 
gation. He  does  not  say,  My  precepts  will  promote 
human  happiness,  therefore  you  are  to  obey  them  :  but 
he  says,  They  are  my  precepts,  therefore  you  are  to 
obey  them.  So  habitually  is  this  principle  borne  in 
mind,  if  we  may  so  speak,  by  those  who  were  com- 
missioned to  communicate  the  Divine  will,  that  the 
reason  of  a  precept  is  not  often  assigned.  The  assump- 
tion evidently  was,  that  the  Divine  will  was  all  that 
it  was  necessary  for  us  to  know.  This  is  not  the  mode 
of  enforcing  duties  which  one  man  usually  adopts  in 

*Deut.  iv.  30.  fMatt.  vii.  24.  JEccl.  xii.  13. 

£Pa.  ciii.  20.  ||Paley  :  Evid.  of  Chris,  p.  2,  c.  2. 


IO  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT   AND   WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

addressing  another.  He  discusses  the  reasonableness 
of  his  advices  and  the  advantages  of  following  them, 
as  well  as,  perhaps,  the  authority  from  which  he  de- 
rives them.  The  difference  that  exists  between  such  a 
mode  and  that  which  is  actually  adopted  in  Scripture, 
is  analogous  to  that  which  exists  between  the  mode  in 
which  a  parent  communicates  his  instructions  to  a 
young  child,  and  that  which  is  employed  by  a  tutor  to 
an  intelligent  youth.  The  tutor  recommends  his  in- 
structions by  their  reasonableness  and  propriety  :  the 
father  founds  his  upon  his  own  authority.  Not  that 
the  father's  instructions  are  not  also  founded  in  pro- 
priety, but  that  this,  in  respect  of  young  children,  is 
not  the  ground  upon  which  he  expects  their  obe- 
dience. It  is  not  the  ground  upon  which  God  expects 
the  obedience  of  man.  We  can,  undoubtedly,  in  gen- 
eral perceive  the  wisdom  of  his  laws,  and  it  is  doubtless 
right  to  seek  out  that  wisdom- ;  but  whether  we  dis- 
cover it  or  not,  does  not  lessen  their  authority  nor  alter 
our  duties. 

In  deference  to  these  reasonings,  then,  we  conclude 
that  the  communicated  will  of  God  is  the  Final  Stan- 
dard of  Right  and  Wrong — that  wheresoever  this  will 
is  made  known,  human  duty  is  determined — and  that 
neither  the  conclusions  of  philosophers,  nor  advantages, 
nor  dangers,  nor  pleasures,  nor  sufferings,  ought  to 
have  any  opposing  influence  in  regulating  our  conduct. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that  in  morals  there  can  be  no 
equilibrium  of  authority.  If  the  expressed  will  of  the 
Deity  is  not  our  supreme  rule,  some  other  is  superior. 
This  fatal  consequence  is  inseparable  from  the  adoption 
of  any  other  ultimate  rule  of  conduct.  The  Divine  law 
becomes  the  decision  of  a  certain  tribunal — the  adopted 
rule,  the  decision  of  a  superior  tribunal — for  that  must 
needs  be  the  superior  which  can  reverse  the  decisions  of 
the  other.    It  is  a  consideration,  too,  which  may  reason- 


CHAP.  II.]  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  II 

ably  alarm  the  enquirer,  that  if  once  we  assume  this 
power  of  dispensing  with  the  Divine  law,  there  is  no 
limit  to  its  exercise.  If  we  may  supersede  one  precept 
of  the  Deity  upon  one  occasion,  we  may  supersede 
every  precept  upon  all  occasions.  Man  becomes  the 
greater  authority,  and  God  the  less. 

If  a  proposition  is  proved  to  be  true,  no  contrary 
reasonings  can  show  it  to  be  false  ;  and  yet  it  is  neces- 
sary to  refer  to  such  reasonings,  not  indeed  for  the  sake 
of  the  truth,  but  for  the  sake  of  those  whose  conduct 
it  should  regulate.  Their  confidence  in  truth  may  be 
increased  if  they  discover  that  the  reasonings  which  as- 
sail it  are  fallacious.  To  a  considerate  man  it  will  be 
no  subject  of  wonder  that  the  supremacy  of  the  ex- 
pressed will  of  God  is  often  not  recognized  in  the  writ- 
ings of  moralists  or  in  the  practice  of  life.  The  specula- 
tive enquirer  finds,  that  of  some  of  the  questions  which 
come  before  him,  Scripture  furnishes  no  solution,  and 
he  seeks  for  some  principle  by  which  all  may  be  solved. 
This  indeed  is  the  ordinary  course  of  those  who  erect 
systems,  whether  in  morals  or  in  physics.  The  moralist 
acknowledges,  perhaps,  the  authority  of  revelation  ;  but 
in  his  investigations  he  passes  away  from  the  precepts  of 
revelation  to  some  of  those  subordinate  means  by  which 
human  duties  may  be  discovered, — means  which, 
however  authorized  by  the  Deity  as  subservient  to  his 
great  purpose  of  human  instruction,  are  wholly  un- 
authorized as  ultimate  standards  of  right  and  wrong. 
Having  fixed  his  attention  upon  these  subsidiary 
means,  he  practically  loses  sight  of  the  Divine  law 
which  he  acknowledges  :  and  thus  without  any  formal, 
perhaps  without  any  conscious,  rejection  of  the  ex- 
pressed will  of  God,  he  really  makes  it  subordinate  to 
inferior  rules.  Another  influential  motive  to  pass  by 
the  Divine  precepts,  operates  both  upon  writers  and 
upon  the  public: — the  rein  which  they  hold  upon  the  de- 


12  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

sires  and  passions  of  mankind,  is  more  tight  than  they 
are  willing  to  bear.  Respecting  some  of  these  pre- 
cepts we  feel  as  the  rich  man  of  old  felt  :  we  hear  the 
injunction  and  go  away,  if  not  with  sorrow  yet  with- 
out obedience.  Here  again  is  an  obvious  motive  to  the 
writer  to  endeavor  to  substitute  some  less  rigid  rule  of 
conduct,  and  an  obvious  motive  to  the  reader  to  ac- 
quiesce in  it  as  true  without  a  very  rigid  scrutiny  into 
its  foundation.  To  adhere  with  fidelity  to  the  expressed 
will  of  heaven,  requires  greater  confidence  in  God 
than  most  men  are  willing  to  repose,  or  than  most  mor- 
alists are  willing  to  recommend. 

But  whatever  have  been  the  causes,  the  fact  is  indis- 
putable, that  few  or  none  of  the  systems  of  morality 
which  have  been  offered  to  the  world,  have  uniformly 
and  consistently  applied  the  communicated  will  of  God 
in  determination  of  those  questions  to  which  it  is  appli- 
cable. Some  insist  upon  its  supreme  authority  in 
general  terms  ;  others  apply  it  in  determining  some 
questions  of  rectitude  :  but  where  is  the  work  that  ap- 
plies it  always?  Where  is  the  moralist  who  holds 
everything,  ease,  interest,  reputation,  expediency, 
"honor," — personal  and  national, — in  subordination 
to  this  moral  law  ? 

One  source  of  ambiguity  and  of  error  in  moral  phil- 
osophy, has  consisted  in  the  indeterminate  use  of  the 
term,  "the  will  of  God."  It  is  used  without  refer- 
ence to  the  mode  by  which  that  will  is  to  be  discovered 
— and  it  is  in  this  mode  that  the  essence  of  the  contro- 
versy lies.  We  are  agreed  that  the  will  of  God  is  to 
be  our  rule":  the  question  at  issue  is,  What  mode  of  dis- 
covering it  should  be  primarily  adopted  ?  Now  the  term, 
the  "will  of  God,"  has  been  applied,  interchange- 
ably, to  the  precepts  of  Scripture,  and  to  the  deductions 
which  have  been  made  from  other  principles.  The 
consequence  has  been  that  the  imposing  sanction,  "  the 


CHAP.  II. J  •    STANDARD   OF   RIGHT  AND   WRONG.  13 

will  of  God,"  has  been  applied  to  propositions  of  very 
different  authority. 

To  inquire  into  the  validity  of  all  those  principles 
which  have  been  proposed  as  the  standard  of  rectitude, 
would  be  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this  essay.  That 
principle  which  appears  to  be  most  recommended  by  its 
own  excellence  and  beauty,  and  which  obtains  the 
greatest  share  of  approbation  in  the  world,  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  directing  ' '  every  action  so  as  to  produce  the 
greatest  happiness  and  the  least  misery  in  our.  power. ' ' 
The  particular  forms  of  defining  the  doctrine  are  var- 
ious, but  they  may  be  conveniently  included  in  the  one 
general  term — Expediency. 

We  say  that  the  apparent  beauty  and  excellence  of 
this  rule  of  action  are  so  captivating,  its  actual  accept- 
ance in  the  world  is  so  great,  and  the  reasonings  by 
which  it  is  supported  are  so  acute,  that  if  it  can  be  shown 
that  this  rule  is  not  the  ultimate  standard  of  right  and 
wrong,  we  may  safely  conclude  that  none  other  which 
philosophy  has  proposed  can  make  pretentions  to  such 
authority.  The  truth  indeed  is,  that  the  objections  to 
the  doctrine  of  expediency  will  generally  be  found  to 
apply  to  every  doctrine  which  lays  claim  to  moral 
supremacy — which  application  the  reader  is  requested 
to  make  for  himself  as  he  passes  along. 

Respecting  the  principle  of  expediency — the  doctrine 
that  we  should,  in  every  action,  endeavor  to  produce 
the  greatest  sum  of  human  happiness — let  it  always  be 
remembered  that  the  only  question  is,  whether  it  ought 
to  be  the  paramount  rule  of  human  conduct.  No  one 
doubts  whether  it  ought  to  influence  us,  or  whether  it 
is  of  great  importance  in  estimating  the  duties  of  mor- 
ality. The  sole  question  is  this  :  — When  an  expression 
of  the  will  of  God,  and  our  calculations  respecting 
human  happiness,  lead  to  different  conclusions  respect- 
ing the  rectitude  of  an  action — whether  of  the  two 
shall  we  prefer  and  obey  ? 


14  STANDARD  OF  RIGHT  AND   WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

We  are  concerned  only  with  Christian  writers. 
Now,  when  we  come  to  analyze  the  principles  of  the 
Christian  advocates  of  expediency,  we  find  precisely 
the  result  which  we  should  expect — a  perpetual  vacil- 
lation between  two  irreconcilable  doctrines.  As  Christ- 
ians, they  necessarily  acknowledge  the  authority,  and 
in  words  at  least,  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Divine 
law  :  as  advocates  of  the  universal  application  of  the 
law  of  expediency,  they  necessarily  sometimes  set 
aside  the  Divine  law,  because  they  sometimes  cannot 
deduce,  from  both  laws,  the  same  rule  of  action. 
Thus  there  is  induced  a  continual  fluctuation  and  un- 
certainty both  in  principles  and  in  practical  rules  :  a 
continual  endeavor  to  ' '  serve  two  masters. ' ' 

The  high  language  of  Dr.  Paley  respecting  expedi- 
ency as  a  paramount  law,  is  well  known  : — "  Whatever 
is  expedient  is  right."* — "  The  obligation  of  every  law 
depends  upon  its  ultimate  utility,  "f — "  It  is  the  utility 
of  any  moral  rule  alone  which  constitutes  the  obligation 
of  it. ' '  J  Perjury,  robbery  and  murder,  '  'are  not  useful, 
and  for  that  reason,  and  that  reason  only,  are  not 
right.  "§  It  is  obvious  that  this  language  affirms  that 
utility  is  a  higher  authority  than  the  expressed  will  of 
God.  If  the  utility  of  a  moral  rule  alone  constitutes 
the  obligation  of  it,  then  is  its  obligation  not  consti- 
tuted by  the  divine  command.  If  murder  is  wrong 
only  because  it  is  not  useful,  it  is  not  wrong  because 
God  has  said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill." 

But  Paley  was  a  Christian,  and  therefore  could 
neither  formally  displace  the  Scripture  precepts  from 
their  station  of  supremacy,  nor  avoid  for mally  acknowl- 
edging that  they  were  supreme.  Accordingly  he  says, 
' '  There  are  two  methods  of  coming  at  the  will  of  God 
on  any  point  :  First — By  his  express  declarations,  when 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  B.  2,  c.  6.     f  B.  6,  c.  12.     %  B.  2,  c.  6. 
I  B.  2.  c.  6. 


CHAP.  II. J  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT  AND   WRONG.  15 

they  are  to  be  had,  and  which  must  be  sought  for  in 
Scripture."*  Secondly — by  Expediency.  And  again, 
when  Scripture  precepts  ' '  are  clear  and  positive,  there 
is  an  end  to  all  further  deliberation.'  f  This  makes 
the  expressed  will  of  God  the  final  standard  of  right 
and  wrong.  And  here  is  the  vacillation,  the  attempt 
to  serve  two  masters  of  which  we  speak  :  for  this  ele- 
vation of  the  express  declarations  of  God  to  the  supre- 
macy, is  also  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  doctrines 
that  are  quoted  in  the  preceding  paragraph. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  say  that  these  inconsisten- 
cies, however  they  may  impeach  the  skilfulness  of  the 
writer,  do  not  prove  that  his  system  is  unsound,  or  that 
Utility  is  not  still  the  ultimate  standard  of  rectitude. 
We  answer,  that  to  a  Christian  writer  such  inconsisten- 
cies are  unavoidable.  He  is  obliged, 'in  conformity 
with  the  principles  of  his  religion,  to  acknowledge  the 
divine,  and  therefore  the  supreme  authority  of  Scripture; 
and  if,  in  addition  to  this,  he  assumes  that  any  other 
is  supreme,  inconsistency  must  ensue.  For  the  same 
consequence  follows  the  adoption  of  any  other  ultimate 
standard — whether  sympathy,  or  right  reason,  or  eter- 
nal fitness,  or  nature.  If  the  writer  is  a  Christian  he 
cannot,  without  falling  into  inconsistencies,  assert  the 
supremacy  of  any  of  these  principles :  that  is  to  say, 
when  the  precepts  of  Scripture  dictate  one  action,  and 
a  reasoning  from  his  principle  dictates  another,  he 
must  make  his  election  :  If  he  prefers  his  principle, 
Christianity  is  abandoned  :  if  he  prefers  Scripture,  his 
principle  is  subordinate  :  if  he  alternately  prefers  the 
one  and  the  other,  he  falls  into  the  vacillation  and  in- 
consistency of  which  we  speak. 

Bearing  still  in  mind  that  the  rule  ' '  to  endeavor  to 
produce  the  greatest  happiness  in  our  power,"  is  objec- 
tionable only  when  it  is  made  an  ultimate  rule,  the 
*B.  2,  c.  4.  f  B.  2,  c.  4  :  Note. 


l6  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  [  ESSAY  I. 

reader  is  invited  to  atteud  to  these  short  considerations. 

I.  In  computing  human  happiness,  the  advocate  of 
expediency  does  not  sufficiently  take  into  the  account 
our  happiness  in  futurity.  Nor  indeed  does  he  always 
take  it  into  account  at  all.  One  definition  says,  "  The 
test  of  the  morality  of  an  act  is  its  tendency  to  promote 
the  temporal  advantage  of  the  greatest  number  in  the 
society  to  which  we  belong."  Now  many  things  may 
be  very  expedient  if  death  were  annihilation,  which 
may  be  very  inexpedient  now  :  and  therefore  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  expect,  nor  an  unreasonable  exercise 
of  humility  to  act  upon  the  expectation,  that  the  divine 
laws  may  sometimes  impose  obligations  of  which  we 
do  not  perceive  the  expediency  or  the  use.  "It  may 
so  fall  out,"  says  Hooker,  "  that  the  reason  why  some 
laws  of  God  were  given,  is  neither  opened  nor  possible 
to  be  gathered  by  the  wit  of  man."*  And  Pearson 
says,  ' '  There  are  many  parts  of  morality,  as  taught  by 
revelation,  which  are  entirely  independent  of  an  accur- 
ate knowledge  of  nature. "f  And  Gisborne,  "Our 
experience  of  God's  dispensations  by  no  means  permits 
us  to  affirm,  that  he  always  thinks  fit  to  act  in  such  a 
manner  as  is  productive  of  particular  expediency  ;  much 
less  to  conclude  that  he  wills  us  always  to  act  in  such 
a  manner  as  we  suppose  would  be  productive  of  it. "J 
All  this  sufficiently  indicates  that  expediency  is  wholly 
inadmissible  as  an  ultimate  rule. 

II.  The  doctrine  is  altogether  unconnected  with  the 
Christian  revelation,  or  with  any  revelation  from 
heaven.  It  was  just  as  true,  and  the  deductions  from 
it  just  as  obligatory,  two  or  five  thousand  years  ago  as 
now.  The  alleged  supreme  law  of  morality — ' !  What- 
ever is  expedient  is  right  " — might  have  been  taught 
by  Epictetus  as  well  as  by  a  modern  Christian.     But 

*  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  3,  s.  10.     f  Theory  of  Morals  :  c.  3. 
%  Principles  of  Mor.  Phil. 


CHAP.  II.]  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  1 7 

are  we  then  to  be  told  that  the  revelations  from  the 
Deity  have  conveyed  no  moral  knowledge  to  man? 
that  they  make  no  act  obligatory  which  was  not  oblig- 
atory before  ?  that  he  who  had  the  fortune  to  discover 
that  "whatever  is  expedient  is  right,"  possessed  a 
moral  law  just  as  perfect  as  that  which  God  has  ush- 
ered into  the  world,  and  much  more  comprehensive  ? 

III.  If  some  subordinate  rule  of  conduct  were  pro- 
posed— some  principle  which  served  as  an  auxiliary 
moral  guide — I  should  not  think  it  a  valid  objection  to 
its  truth,  to  be  told  that  no  sanction  of  the  principle 
was  to  be  found  in  the  written  revelation  :  but  if  some 
rule  of  conduct  were  proposed  as  being  of  tmiversal 
obligation,  some  moral  principle  which  was  paramount 
to  every  other — and  I  discovered  that  this  principle 
was  unsanctioned  by  the  written  revelation,  I  should 
think  this  want  of  sanction  was  conclusive  evidence 
against  it  :  because  it  is  not  credible  that  a  revelation 
from  God,  of  which  one  great  object  was  to  teach  man- 
kind the  moral  law  of  God,  would  have  been  silent 
respecting  a  rule  of  conduct  which  was  to  be  an  univer- 
sal guide  to  man.  We  apply  these  considerations  to 
the  doctrine  of  expediency  :  Scripture  contains  not  a 
word  upon  the  subject. 

IV.  The  principles  of  expediency  necessarily  pro- 
ceed upon  the  supposition  that  we  are  to  investigate 
the  future,  and  this  investigation  is,  as  every  one 
knows,  peculiarly  without  the  limits  of  human  sagacity: 
an  objection  which  derives  additional  force  from  the 
circumstance  that  an  action,  in  order  to  be  expedient, 
"must  be  expedient  on  the  whole,  at  the  long  run,  in 
all  its  effects,  collateral  and  remote."*  I  do  not  know 
whether,  if  a  man  should  sit  down  expressly  to  devise 
a  moral  principle  which  should  be  uncertain  and  diffi- 
cult in  its  application,  he  could  devise  one  that  would 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  B.  2,  c.  8. 


l8  STANDARD  OF  RIGHT   AND   WRONG.  [ESSAY   I. 

be  more  difficult  and  uncertain  than  this.  So  that,  as 
Dr.  Paley  himself  acknowledges,  "It  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  every  duty  by  an  immediate  reference  to  pub- 
lic utility."*  The  reader  may  therefore  conclude  with 
Dr.  Johnson,  that  "  by  presuming  to  determine  what 
is  fit  and  what  is  beneficial,  they  presuppose  more 
knowledge  of  the  universal  system  than  man  has  at- 
tained, and  therefore  depend  upon  principles  too  com- 
plicated and  extensive  for  our  comprehension  :  and  there 
ca?i  be  no  security  in  the  corisequence  when  the  premises 
are  not  understood,  "f 

V.  But  whatever  may  be  the  propriety  of  investigat- 
ing all  consequences  "  collateral  and  remote,"  it  is  cer- 
tain that  such  an  investigation  is  possible  only  in  that 
class  of  moral  questions  which  allows  a  man  time  to  sit 
down  and  deliberately  to  think  and  compute.  As  it 
respects  that  large  class  of  cases  in  which  a  person 
must  decide  and  act  in  a  moment,  it  is  wholly  useless. 
There  are  thousands  of  conjunctures  in  life  in  which 
a  man  can  no  more  stop  to  calculate  effects  collateral 
and  remote,  than  he  can  stop  to  cross  the  Atlantic  : 
and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  any  rule  of  morality 
can  be  absolute  and  universal,  which  is  totally  inappli- 
cable to  so  large  a  portion  of  human  affairs. 

VI.  Lastly,  the  rule  of  expediency  is  deficient  in 
one  of  the  first  requisites  of  a  moral  law — obviousness 
and  palpability  of  sanction.  What  is  the  process  by 
which  the  sanction  is  applied  ?  Its  advocates  say,  the 
Deity  is  a  benevolent  Being  :  as  he  is  benevolent  him- 
self, it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  he  wills  that  his 
creatures  should  be  benevolent  to  one  another  :  this 
benevolence  is  to  be  exercised  by  adapting  every  action 
to  the  promotion  of  the  ' '  universal  interest ' '  of  man  : 
1 '  Whatever  is  expedient  is  right : "  or,  God  wills  that 
we    should   consult   expediency. — Now   we   say   that 

t  B.  6,  c.  12.  f  Western  Isles. 


CHAP.  II.]  STANDARD   OF  RIGHT   AND   WRONG.  19 

there  are  so  many  considerations  placed  between  the  rule 
and  the  act,  that  the  practical  authority  of  the  rule  is 
greatly  diminished.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the 
authority  of  a  rule  will  not  come  home  to  that  man's 
mind,  who  is  told,  respecting  a  given  action,  that  its 
effects  upon  the  universal  interest  is  the  only  thing 
that  makes  it  right  or  wrong.  All  the  doubts  that 
arise  as  to  this  effect  are  so  many  diminutions  of  the 
sanction.  It  is  like  putting  half  a  dozen  new  contin- 
gencies between  the  act  of  thieving  and  the  conviction 
of  a  jury  ;  and  every  one  knows  that  the  want  of  cer- 
tainty of  penalty  is  a  great  encouragement  to  offences. 
The  principle  too  is  liable  to  the  most  extravagant 
abuse — or  rather  extravagant  abuse  is,  in  the  present 
condition  of  mankind,  inseperable  from  its  general 
adoption.  "  Whatever  is  expedient  is  right,"  solilo- 
quizes the  moonlight  adventurer  into  the  poultry-yard: 
4 '  It  will  tend  more  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness 
that  my  wife  and  I  should  dine  on  a  capon,  than  that 
the  farmer  should  feel  the  satisfaction  of  possessing 
it ;" — and  so  he  mounts  the  hen-roost.  I  do  not  say 
that  this  hungry  moralist  would  reason  soundly,  but  I 
say  that  he  would  not  listen  to  the  philosophy  which 
replied,  "  Oh,  your  reasoning  is  incomplete  :  you  must 
take  into  account  all  consequences  collateral  and  re- 
mote ;  and  then  you  will  find  that  it  is  more  expedient, 
upon  the  whole  and  at  the  long  run,  that  you  and  your 
wife  should  be  hungry,  than  that  hen-roosts  should  be 
insecure. '  ■ 

It  is  happy,  however,  that  this  principle  never  can 
be  generally  applied  to  the  private  duties  of  man.  Its 
abuses  would  be  so  enormous  that  the  laws  would  take, 
as  they  do  in  fact  take,  better  measures  for  regulating 
men's  conduct  than  this  doctrine  supplies.  And  hap- 
pily too,  the  Universal  Lawgiver  has  not  left  mankind 
without  more  distinct  and  more  influential  perceptions 


20  STANDARD   OF   RIGHT  AND  WRONG.  [ESSAY  I. 

of  his  will  and  his  authority,  than  they  could  ever  de- 
rive from  the  principles  of  expediency. 


But  an  objection  has  probably  presented  itself  to  the 
reader,  that  the  greater  part  of  mankind  have  no  access 
to  the  written  expression  of  the  will  of  God  :  and  how, 
it  may  be  asked,  can  that  be  the  final  standard  of  right 
and  wrong  for  the  human  race,  of  which  the  majority 
of  the  race  have  never  heard  ?  The  question  is  reason- 
able and  fair. 

We  answer  then,  first,  that  supposing  most  men  to 
be  destitute  of  a  communication  of  the  Divine  will,  it 
does  not  affect  the  obligations  of  those  who  do  possess 
it.  That  communication  is  the  final  law  to  me, 
whether  my  African  brother  enjoys  it  or  not.  Every 
reason  by  which  the  supreme  authority  of  the  law  is 
proved,  is  just  as  applicable  to  those  who  do  enjoy  the 
communication  of  it,  whether  that  communication  is 
enjoyed  by  many  or  by  few  ;  and  this,  so  far  as  the 
argument  is  concerned,  appears  to  be  a  sufficient 
answer.  If  any  man  has  no  direct  access  to  his 
Creator's  will,  let  him  have  recourse  to  "  eternal  fit- 
nesses," or  to  "expediency;"  but  his  condition  does 
not  affect  that  of  another  man  who  does  possess  this 
access. 

But  our  real  reply  to  the  objection  is,  that  they  who 
are  destitute  of  Scripture,  are  not  destitute  of  a  direct 
communication  of  the  will  of  God.  The  proof  of  this 
position  must  be  deferred  to  a  subsequent  chapter ;  and 
the  reader  is  solicited  for  the  present,  to  allow  us  to 
assume  its  truth.  This  direct  communication  may  be 
limited,  it  may  be  incomplete,  but  some  communication 
exists  ;  enough  to  assure  them  that  some  things  are 
acceptable  to  the  Supreme  Power,  and  that  some  are 
not ;  enough  to  indicate  a  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong  ;  enough  to  make  them  moral  agents,  and 


CHAP.  III.]  SUBORDINATE  STANDARDS,    ETC.  21 

reasonably  accountable  to  our  common  Judge.  If 
these  principles  are  true,  and  especially  if  the  amount 
of  the  communication  is  in  many  cases  considerable,  it 
is  obvious  that  it  will  be  of  great  value  in  the  direction 
of  individual  conduct.  We  say  of  i?idividual  conduct, 
because  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  it  would  not  often 
subserve  the  purposes  of  him  who  frames  public  rules 
of  morality.  A  person  may  possess  a  satisfactory  as- 
surance in  his  own  mind,  that  a  given  action  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  Divine  will,  but  that  assurance  is  not 
conveyed  to  another,  unless  he  participates  in  the  evi- 
dence upon  which  it  is  founded.  That  which  is  wanted 
in  order  to  supply  public  rules  for  human  conduct,  is  a 
publicly  avouched  authority  ;  so  that  a  writer,  in  de- 
ducing those  rules,  has  to  apply,  ultimately,  to  that 
standard  which  God  has  publicly  sanctioned. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SUBORDINATE  STANDARDS  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG. 

Foundation  and  limits  of  the  authority  of  subordinate 
moral  rules. 

The  written  expression  of  the  Divine  will  does  not 
contain,  and  no  writings  can  contain,  directions  for  our 
conduct  in  every  circumstance  of  life.  If  the  precepts 
of  Scripture  were  multiplied  a  hundred  or  a  thousand 
fold,  there  would  still  arise  a  multiplicity  of  questions 
to  which  none  of  them  would  specifically  apply. 
Accordingly,  there  are  some  subordinate  authorities,  to 
which,  as  can  be  satisfactorily  shown,  it  is  the  will  of 
God  that  we  should  refer.  He  who  does  refer  to  them 
and  regulate  his  conduct  by  them,  conforms  to  the 
will  of  God. 

To  a  son  who  is  obliged  to  regulate  all  his  actions  by 


22  SUBORDINATE  STANDARDS,   ETC.  [ESSAY  I. 

his  father's  will,  there  are  two  ways  in  which  he  may 
practice  obedience — one,  by  receiving,  upon  each  sub- 
ject, his  father's  direct  instructions  ;  and  the  other  by 
receiving  instructions  from  those  whom  his  father  com- 
missions to  teach  him.  The  parent  may  appoint  a 
governor,  and  enjoin,  that  upon  all  questions  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  the  son  shall  conform  to  his  instructions  ;  and 
if  the  son  does  this,  he  as  truly  and  really  performs  his 
father's  will,  and  as  strictly  makes  that  will  the  guide 
of  his  conduct,  as  if  he  received  the  instructions  imme- 
diately from  his  parent.  But  if  the  father  have  laid 
down  certain  general  rules  for  his  son's  observance,  as 
that  he  shall  devote  ten  hours  a  day  to  study,  and  not 
less — although  the  governor  should  recommend  or  even 
command  him  to  devote  fewer  hours,  he  may  not  com- 
ply ;  for  if  he  does,  the  governor,  and  not  his  father, 
is  his  supreme  guide.     The  subordination  is  destroyed. 

This  case  illustrates,  perhaps,  with  sufficient  precis- 
ion, the  situation  of  mankind  with  respect  to  moral 
rules.  Our  Creator  has  given  direct  laws,  some  gen- 
eral and  some  specific.  These  are  of  final  authority. 
But  he  has  also  sanctioned,  or  permitted  an  application 
to,  other  rules  ;  and  in  conforming  to  these,  so  long  as 
we  hold  them  in  subordination  to  his  laws  we  perform 
his  will. 

Of  these  subordinate  rules  it  were  possible  to  enum- 
erate many.  Perhaps,  indeed,  few  principles  have 
been  proposed  as  "The  fundamental  Rules  of  Virtue," 
which  may  not  rightly  be  brought  into  use  by  the 
Christian  in  regulating  his  conduct  in  life  :  for  the  ob- 
jection to  many  of  these  principles  is,  not  so  much  that 
they  are  useless,  as  that  they  are  unwarranted  as  para- 
mount laws.  ■ '  Sympathy ' '  may  be  of  use,  and 
"Nature"  may  be  of  use,  and  "Self-love,"  and 
"Benevolence;"  and  to  those  who  know  what  it 
means,  ' '  Eternal  fitnesses  too. ' ' 


CHAP.  IV.]  IDENTICAL  AUTHORITY  OF,   ETC.  23 

Some  of  the  subordinate  rules  of  conduct  it  will  be 
proper  hereafter  to  notice,  in  order  to  discover,  if  we 
can,  how  far  their  authority  extends,  and  where  it 
ceases.  The  observations  that  we  shall  have  to  offer 
upon  them  may  conveniently  be  made  under  these 
heads  :  The  Law  of  the  Land,  The  Law  of  Nature, 
The  Promotion  of  Human  Happiness  or  Expediency, 
The  Law  of  Nations,  The  Law  of  Honor. 

These  observations  will,  however,  necessarily  be  pre- 
ceded by  an  enquiry  into  the  great  principles  of  human 
duty  as  they  are  delivered  in  Scripture,  and  into  the 
reality  of  that  communication  of  the  Divine  will  to  the 
mind,  which  the  reader  has  been  requested  to  allow  us 
to  assume. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

COLLATERAL  OBSERVATIONS. 

The  reader  is  requested  to  regard  the  present  chapter  as 
parenthetical.  The  parenthesis  is  inserted  here,  because  the 
writer  does  not  know  where  more  appropriately  to  place  it. 


IDENTICAL  AUTHORITY  OF   MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS 
OBLIGATIONS. 

Identical  authority  of  moral  and  religious  obligations — The 
Divine  attributes — Of  deducing  rules  of  human  duty  from  a 
consideration  of  the  attributes  of  God — Virtue  :  "  Virtue  is 
conformity  with  the  standard  of  rectitude  ' ' — Motives  of 
action. 

This  identity  is  a  truth  to  which  we  do  not  suffici- 
ently advert  either  in  our  habitual  sentiments  or  in  our 
practice.     There    are    many    persons    who   speak   of 


24  IDENTICAL  AUTHORITY  OF  [ESSAY  I. 

religious  duties,  as  if  there  was  something  sacred  or 
imperative  in  their  obligation  that  does  not  belong  to 
duties  of  morality — many,  who  would  perhaps  offer  up 
their  lives  rather  than  profess  a  belief  in  a  false  relig- 
ious dogma,  but  who  would  scarcely  sacrifice  an  hour's 
gratification  rather  than  violate  the  moral  law  of  love. 
It  is  therefore  of  importance  to  remember  that  the 
authority  which  imposes  moral  obligations  and  religious 
obligations  is  one  and  the  same — the  will  of  God. 
Fidelity  to  God  is  just  as  truly  violated  by  a  neglect  of 
his  moral  laws,  as  by  a  compromise  of  religious  prin- 
ciples. Religion  and  Morality  are  abstract  terms,  em- 
ployed to  indicate  different  classes  of  those  duties 
which  the  Deity  has  imposed  upon  mankind  ;  but  they 
are  all  imposed  by  Him,  and  all  are  enforced  by  equal 
authority.  Not  indeed  that  the  violation  of  every  par- 
ticular portion  of  the  Divine  will  involves  equal  guilt, 
but  that  each  violation  is  equally  a  disregard  of  the 
Divine  authority.  Whether,  therefore,  fidelity  be 
required  to  a  point  of  doctrine  or  practice,  to  theol- 
ogy or  to  morals,  the  obligation  is  the  same.  It  is  the 
Divine  requisition  which  constitutes  this  obligation, 
and  not  the  nature  of  the  duty  required ;  so  that, 
whilst  I  think  a  Protestant  does  no  more  than  his  duty 
when  he  prefers  death  to  a  profession  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith,  I  think  also  that  every  Christian  who 
believes  that  Christ  has  prohibited  swearing,  does  no 
more  than  his  duty  when  he  prefers  death  to  taking  an 
oath. 

I  would  especially  solicit  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind 
this  principle  of  the  identity  of  the  authority  of  moral 
and  religious  obligations,  because  he  may  otherwise 
imagine  that,  in  some  of  the  subsequent  pages,  the  ob- 
ligation of  a  moral  law  is  too  strenuously  insisted  on, 
and  that  fidelity  to  it  is  to  be  purchased  at  ' '  too  great 
a  sacrifice  "  of  ease  and  enjoyment. 


CHAP.  IV.]       MORAI,  AND   RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  25 

THE   DIVINE  ATTRIBUTES. 

The  purpose  for  which  a  reference  is  here  made  to 
these  sacred  subjects,  is  to  remark  upon  the  unfitness 
of  attempting  to  deduce  human  duties  from  the  attri- 
butes of  God.  It  is  not  indeed  to  be  affirmed  that  no 
illustration  of  those  duties  can  be  derived  from  them, 
but  i  that  they  are  too  imperfectly  cognizable  by  our 
perceptions  to  enable  us  to  refer  to  them  for  specific 
moral  rules.  The  truth  indeed  is,  that  we  do  not  ac- 
curately and  distinctly  know  what  the  Divine  attributes 
are.  We  say  that  God  is  merciful ;  but  if  we  attempt 
to  define,  with  strictness,  what  the  term  merciful 
means,  we  shall  find  it  a  difficult,  perhaps  an  impracti- 
cable task  ;  and  especially  we  shall  have  a  difficult 
task  if,  after  the  definition,  we  attempt  to  reconcile 
every  appearance  which  presents  itself  in  the  world, 
with  our  notions  of  the  attribute  of  mercy.  I  would 
vSpeak  with  reverence  when  I  say  that  we  cannot  always 
perceive  the  mercifulness  of  the  Deity  in  his  adminis- 
trations, either  towards  his  rational  or  his  irrational 
creation.  So,  again,  in  respect  of  the  attribute  of 
Justice,  who  can  determinately  define  in  what  this 
attribute  consists?  Who,  especially,  can  prove  that 
the  Almighty  designs  that  we  should  always  be  able  to 
trace  his  justice  in  his  government?  We  believe  that 
he  is  unchangeable ;  but  what  is  the  sense  in  which 
we  understand  the  term  ?  De  we  mean  that  the  attri- 
bute involves  the  necessity  of  an  unchanging  system  of 
moral  government,  or  that  the  Deity  cannot  make  al- 
terations in,  or  additions  to,  his  laws  for  mankind? 
We  cannot  mean  this,  for  the  evidence  of  revelation 
disproves  it. 

Now,  if  it  be  true  that  the  Divine  attributes,  and  the 
uniform  accordancy  of  the  Divine  dispensations  with 
our  notions  of  those  attributes,  are  not  sufficiently 
within  our  powers  of   investigation   to  enable  us   to 


26  IDENTICAL  AUTHORITY  OF  [ESSAY  I. 

frame  accurate  premises  for  our  reasoning,  it  is  plain 
that  we  cannot  always  trust  with  safety  to  our  conclu- 
sions. We  cannot  deduce  rules  for  our  conduct  from 
the  Divine  attributes  without  being  very  liable  to  error  ; 
and  the  liability  will  increase  in  proportion  as  the  de- 
duction attempts  critical  accuracy. 

Yet  this  is  a  rock  upon  which  the  judgments  of 
many  have  suffered  wreck,  a  quicksand  where  many 
have  been  involved  in  inextricable  difficulties.  One, 
because  he  cannot  reconcile  the  commands  to  extermi- 
nate a  people  with  his  notions  of  the  attribute  of  mercy, 
questions  the  truth  of  the  Mosaic  writings.  One,  be- 
cause he  finds  wars  permitted  by  the  Almighty  of  old, 
concludes  that,  as  he  is  unchangeable,  they  cannot  be 
incompatible  with  his  present  or  his  future  will.  One, 
on  the  supposition  of  this  uuchangeableness,  perplexes 
himself  because  the  dispensations  of  God  and  his  laws 
have  been  changed ;  and  vainly  labors,  by  classifying 
these  laws  into  those  which  result  from  his  attributes, 
and  those  which  do  not,  to  vindicate  the  immutability 
of  God.  We  have  no  business  with  these  things,  and 
I  will  venture  to  affirm  that  he  who  will  take  nothing 
upon  trust — who  will  exercise  no  faith — who  will  be- 
lieve in  the  divine  authority  of  no  rule,  and  in  the 
truth  of  no  record,  which  he  is  unable  to  reconcile  with 
the  Divine  attributes — must  be  consigned  to  hopeless 
Pyrrhonism. 

The  lesson  which  such  considerations  teach  is  a  sim- 
ple but  an  important  one  :  That  our  exclusive  business 
is  to  discover  the  actual  present  will  of  God,  without 
enquiring  why  his  will  is  such  as  it  is,  or  why  it  has 
ever  been  different ;  and  without  seeking  to  deduce, 
from  our  notions  of  the  Divine  attributes,  rules  of  con- 
duct which  are  more  safely  and  more  certainly  discov- 
ered by  other  means. 


CHAP.  IV.]    MORAL  AND  REUGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  27 

VIRTUE. 

The*  definitions  which  have  been  proposed  of  virtue 
have  necessarily  been  both  numerous  and  various,  be- 
cause many  and  discordant  standards  of  rectitude  have 
been  advanced  ;  and  virtue  must,  in  every  man's  sys- 
tem, essentially  consist  in  conforming  the  conduct  to 
the  standard  which  he  thinks  is  the  true  one.  This 
must  be  true  of  those  systems,  at  least,  which  make 
virtue  consist  in  doing  right. — Adam  Smith  indeed 
says,  that  ' '  Virtue  is  excellence  ;  something  uncom- 
monly great  and  beautiful,  which  rises  far  above  what 
is  vulgar  and  ordinary."*  By  which  it  would  appear 
that  virtue  is  a  relative  quality,  depending  not  upon 
some  perfect  or  permanent  standard,  but  upon  the  ex- 
isting practice  of  mankind.  Thus  the  action  which 
possessed  no  virtue  amongst  a  good  community,  might 
possess  much  in  a  bad  one.  The  practice  which  "  rose 
far  above  "  the  ordinary  practice  of  one  nation,  might 
be  quite  common  in  another :  and  if  mankind  should 
become  much  worse  than  they  are  now,  that  conduct 
would  be  eminently  virtuous  amongst  them  which  now 
is  not  virtuous  at  all.  That  such  a  definition  of  virtue 
is  likely  to  lead  to  very  imperfect  practice  is  plain  ;  for 
what  is  the  probability  that  a  man  will  attain  to  that 
standard  which  God  proposes,  if  his  utmost  estimate  of 
'  virtue  rises  no  higher  than  to  an  indeterminate  super- 
iority over  other  men  ? 

Our  definition  of  virtue  necessarily  accords  with  the 
principles  of  morality  which  have  been  advanced  in  the 
preceding  chapter  :  Virtue  is  conformity  with  the  Stand- 
ard of  Rectitude ;  which  standard  consists,  primarily, 
in  the  expressed  will  of  God. 

Virtue,  as  it  respects  the  meritoriousness  of  the 
agent,  is  another  consideration.      The  quality  of  an 

*Theo.  Mor.  Sent. 


28  IDENTICAL  AUTHORITY  OF  [ESSAY  I. 

action  is  one  thing,  the  desert  of  the  agent  is  another. 
The  business  of  him  who  illustrates  moral  rules,  is  not 
with  the  agent,  but  with  the  act.  He  must  state  what 
the  moral  law  pronounces  to  be  right  and  wrong  :  but 
it  is  very  possible  that  an  individual  may  do  what  is 
right  without  any  virtue,  because  there  may  be  no  rec- 
titude in  his  motives  and  intentions.  He  does  a  virtu- 
ous act,  but  he  is  not  a  virtuous  agent. 

Although  the  concern  of  a  work  like  the  present  is 
evidently  with  the  moral  character  of  actions,  without 
reference  to  the  motives  of  the  agent  ;  yet  the  remark 
may  be  allowed,  that  there  is  frequently  a  sort  of  in- 
accuracy and  unreasonableness  in  the  judgments  which 
we  form  of  the  deserts  of  other  men.  We  regard  the 
act  too  much,  and  the  intention  too  little.  The  foot- 
pad who  discharges  a  pistol  at  a  traveller  and  fails  in 
his  aim,  is  just  as  wicked  as  if  he  had  killed  him  ;  yet 
we  do  not  feel  the  same  degree  of  indignation  at  his 
crime.  So,  too,  of  a  person  who  does  good.  A  man 
who  plunges  into  a  river  and  saves  a  child  from  drown- 
ing, impresses  the  parents  with  a  stronger  sense  of  his 
deserts  than  if,  with  the  same  exertions,  he  had  failed. 
— We  should  endeavor  to  correct  this  inequality  of 
judgment,  and  in  forming  our  estimates  of  human  con- 
duct, should  refer,  much  more  than  we  commonly  do, 
to  what  the  agent  inte?ids.  It  should  habitually  be 
borne  in  mind,  and  especially  with  reference  to  our 
own  conduct,  that  to  have  been  unable  to  execute  an 
ill  intention  deducts  nothing  from  our  guilt ;  and  that 
at  that  tribunal  where  intention  and  action  will  be 
both  regarded,  it  will  avail  little  if  we  can  only  say 
that  we  have  done  no  evil.  Nor  let  it  be  less  remem- 
bered, with  respect  to  those  who  desire  to  do  good  but 
have  not  the  power,  that  their  virtue  is  not  diminished 
by  their  want  of  ability.  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  as 
grateful  to  the  man  who  feelingly  commiserates  my 


CHAP.    V.]  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    ETC.  29 

sufferings  but  cannot  relieve  them,  as  to  him  who  sends 
me  money  or  a  physician.  The  mite  of  the  widow  of 
old  was  estimated  even  more  highly  than  the  greater 
offerings  of  the  rich. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SCRIPTURE. 


The  morality  of  the  Patriarchal,  Mosaic,  and  Christian  dispen- 
sations— Their  moral  requisitions  not  always  coincident — 
Supremacy  of  the  Christian  morality — Of  variations  in  the 
Moral  Law — Mode  of  applying  the  precepts  of  Scripture  to 
the  questions  of  duty — No  formal  moral  system  in  Scripture — 
Criticism  of  Biblical  morality — Of  particular  precepts  and 
general  rules — Matt.  vii.  12. — 1  Cor.  x.  31. — Rom.  iii.  8. — 
Benevolence,  as  it  is  proposed  in  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

THE    MORALITY     OF    THE    PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC 
AND  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS. 

One  of  the  very  interesting  considerations  which  are 
presented  to  an  enquirer  in  perusing  the  volume  of 
Scripture,  consists  in  the  variations  in  its  morality. 
There  are  three  distinctly  defined  periods,  in  which 
the  moral  government  and  laws  of  the  Deity  assume, 
in  some  respects,  a  different  character.  In  the  first, 
without  any  system  of  external  instruction,  he  com- 
municated his  will  to  some  of  our  race,  either  immedi- 
ately or  through  a  superhuman  messenger.  In  the 
second,  he  promulgated,  through  Moses,  a  distinct  and 
extended  code  of  laws,  addressed  peculiarly  to  a  se- 
lected people.  In  the  third,  Jesus  Christ  and  his  com- 
missioned ministers,  delivered  precepts,  of  which  the 
general  character  was  that  of  greater  purity  or  perfec- 
tion, and  of  which  the  obligation  was  universal  upon 
mankind. 


30  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [KSSAY  I. 

That  the  records  of  all  these  dispensations  contain 
declarations  of  the  will  of  God,  is  certain  :  that  their 
moral  requisitions  are  not  always  coincident,  is  also 
certain  ;  and  hence  the  conclusion  becomes  inevitable, 
that  to  us,  one  is  of  primary  authority  ; — that  when  all 
do  not  coincide,  one  is  paramount  to  the  others.  That 
a  coincidence  does  not  always  exist,  may  easily  be 
shown.  It  is  manifest,  not  only  by  a  comparison  of 
precepts  and  of  the  general  tenor  of  the  respective 
records,  but  from  the  express  declarations  of  Christian- 
ity itself. 

One  example,  referring  to  the  Christian  and  Jewish 
dispensations,  may  be  found  in  the  extension  of  the 
law  of  L,ove.  Christianity,  in  extending  the  application 
of  this  law,  requires  us  to  abstain  from  that  which  the 
law  of  Moses  permitted  us  to  do.  Thus  it  is  in  the 
instance  of  duties  to  our  ' '  neighbor, ' '  as  they  are  illus- 
trated in  the  parable  of  the  Samaritan.*  Thus  too,  in 
the  sermon  on  the  mount :  "It  hath  been  said  by  them 
of  old  time.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  and  hate 
thine  enemy:  but  /say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  "f 
It  is  indeed  sometimes  urged  that  the  words  "hate 
thine  enemy,"  were  only  a  gloss  of  the  expounders  of 
the  law  :  but  Grotius  writes  thus — "What  is  there  re- 
peated as  said  to  those  of  old,  are  not  the  words  of  the 
teachers  of  the  law,  but  of  Moses ;  either  literally  or 
in  their  meaning.  They  are  cited  by  our  Saviour  as 
his  express  words,  not  as  interpretations  of  them."| 
If  the  authority  of  Grotius  should  not  satisfy  the  reader, 
let  him  consider  such  passages  as  this  :  "  ^.n  Ammon- 
ite or  a  Moabite  shall  not  enter  into  the  congregation 
of  the  Lord.  Because  they  met  you  not  with  bread 
and  with  water  in  the  way,  when  ye  came  forth  out  of 
Egypt.  Thou  shall  not  seek  their  peace  nor  their  pros- 
perity all  thy  days  for  ever."§     This  is  not  coincident 

*  Luke  x.  30.  t  Matt.  v.  43. 

X  Rights  of  War  and  Peace.  g  Deut.  xxiii.  3,  4,  6. 


CHAP.   V.]  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS.  31 

with,  "Love  your  enemies;"  or  with,  "Do  good  to 
them  that  hate  you;"  or  with  that  temper  which  is 
recommended  by  the  wTords,  "  to  him  that  smiteth  thee 
on  one  cheek,  turn  the  other  also."* 

' '  Pour  out  thy  fury  upon  the  heathen  that  know 
thee  not,  and  upon  the  families  that  call  not  on  thy 
name, "I — is  not  coincident  with  the  reproof  of  Christ 
to  those  who,  upon  similar  grounds,  would  have  called 
down  fire  from  heaven. ||  ''The  Lord  look  upon  it 
and  require  it,"  f — is  not  coincident  writh,  "Lord,  lay 
not  this  sin  to  their  charge.  "§  ' '  Let  me  see  thy  ven- 
geance on  them,"§§ — "Bring  upon  them  the  day  of 
evil,  and  destroy  them  with  double  destruction,"  ^f — 
is  not  coincident  with  "  Forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do."** 

Similar  observations  apply  to  swearing,  to  polygamy, 
to  retaliation,  to  the  motives  of  murder  and  adultery. 

And  as  to  the  express  assertion  of  the  want  of  coin- 
cidence : — "The  law  made  nothing  perfect,  but  the 
bringing  in  of  a  better  hope  did.  "ft  ' '  There  is  verily 
a  disannulling  of  the  commandment  going  before,  for 
the  weakness  and  unprofitableness  thereof.  "JJ  If  the 
commandment  now  existing  is  not  weak  and  unprofit- 
able, it  must  be  because  it  is  superior  to  that  which 
existed  before. 

But  although  this  appears  to  be  thus  clear  with  re- 
spect to  the  Jewish  dispensation,  there  are  some  who 
regard  the  moral  precepts  which  were  delivered  before 
the  period  of  that  dispensation,  as  imposing  permanent 
obligations  :  they  were  delivered,  it  is  said,  not  to  one 
peculiar  people,  but  to  individuals  of  many ;  and,  in 
the  persons  of  the  immediate  survivors  of  the  deluge, 

*  Matt.  v.  39.  %  Jer.  x.  25.  ||  Luke,  ix.  54. 

|  2  Chron.  xxiv.  22.  $  Acts,  vii.  60.  \  Jer.  xvii.  18. 

XX  Heb.  vii.  18.  \\  Jer.  xx.  12.  ff  Heb.  vii.  19. 
**  Luke,  xxiii.  34. 


32  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,   AND  [KSSAY  I. 

to  the  whole  human  race.  This  argument  assumes 
a  ground  paramount  to  all  questions  of  subsequent 
abrogation.  Now  it  would  appear  a  sufficient  answer 
to  say — If  the  precepts  of  the  Patriarchal  and  Christian 
dispensations  are  coincident,  no  question  needs  to  be 
discussed  ;  if  they  are  not,  we  must  make  an  election  ; 
and  surely  the  Christian  cannot  doubt  what  election  he 
should  make.  Could  a  Jew  have  justified  himself  for 
violating  the  Mosaic  law,  by  urging  the  precepts  deliv- 
ered to  the  patriarchs?  No.  Neither  then  can  we 
justify  ourselves  for  violating  the  Christian  law,  by 
urging  the  precepts  delivered  to  Moses. 

We  indeed  have,  if  it  be  possible,  still  stronger  mo- 
tives. The  moral  law  of  Christianity  binds  us,  not 
merely  because  it  is  the  present  expression  of  the  will 
of  God,  but  because  it  is  a  portion  of  his  last  dispen- 
sation to  man — of  that  which  is  avowedly  not  only  the 
last,  but  the  highest  and  the  best.  We  do  not  find  in 
the  records  of  Christianity  that  which  we  find  in  the 
other  Scriptures,  a  reference  to  a  greater  and  purer 
dispensation  yet  to  come.  It  is  as  true  of  the  Patriarchal 
as  of  the  Mosaic  institution,  that  "it  made  nothing 
perfect,"  and  that  it  referred  us  from  the  first,  to  "the 
bringing  in  of  that  better  hope  which  did."  If  then 
the  question  of  supremacy  is  between  a  perfect  and  an 
imperfect  system,  who  will  hesitate  in  his  decision  ? 

There  are  motives  of  gratitude,  too,  and  of  affection, 
as  well  as  of  reason.  The  clearer  exhibition  which 
Christianity  gives  of  the  attributes  of  God  ;  its  distinct 
disclosure  of  our  immortal  destinies  ;  and  above  all,  its 
wonderful  discovery  of  the  love  of  our  Universal  Father, 
may  well  give  to  the  moral  law  with  which  they  are 
connected,  an  authority  which  may  supersede  every 
other. 

These  considerations  are  of  practical  importance  ;  for 
it  may  be  observed  of  those  who  do  not  advert  to  them, 


CHAP.    V.]  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS.  33 

that  they  sometimes  refer  indiscriminately  to  the  Old 
Testament  or  the  New,  without  any  other  guide  than 
the  apparent  greater  applicability  of  a  precept  in  the 
one  or  the  other,  to  their  present  need  :  and  thus  it 
happens  that  a  rule  is  sometimes  acted  upon,  less  per- 
fect than  that  by  which  it  is  the  good  pleasure  of  God 
we  should  now  regulate  our  conduct. — It  is  a  fact  which 
the  reader  should  especially  notice,  that  an  appeal  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  frequently  made  when  the  pre- 
cepts of  Christianity  would  be  too  rigid  for  our  purpose. 
He  who  insists  upon  a  pure  morality,  applies  to  the 
New  Testament,  he  who  desires  a  little  more  indulg- 
ence defends  himself  by  arguments  from  the  Old. 

Of  this  indiscriminate  reference  to  all  the  dispensations 
there  is  an  extraordinary  example  in  the  newly  discov- 
ered work  of  Milton.  He  appeals,  I  believe,  almost 
uniformly  to  the  precepts  of  all,  as  of  equal  present 
obligation.  The  consequence  is  what  might  be  expected 
— his  moral  system  is  not  consistent.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
forgotten,  that  in  defending  what  may  be  regarded  as 
less  pure  doctrines,  he  refers  mostly,  or  exclusively,  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  In  all  his  disquisitions  to  prove 
the  lawfulness  of  untruths,  he  does  not  once  refer  to 
the  New  Testament.*  Those  who  have  observed  the 
prodigious  multiplicity  of  texts  which  he  cites  in  this 
work,  will  peculiary  appreciate  the  importance  of  the 
fact. — Again:  "  Hatred,"  he  says,  "  is  in  some  cases  a 
religious  duty. " f  A  proposition  at  which  the  Christian 
may  reasonably  wonder.  And  how  does  Milton  prove 
its  truth  ?  He  cites  from  Scripture  te?i  passages  ; 
of  which  eight,  are  from  the  Old  Testament  and  two 
from  the  New.  The  reader  will  be  curious  to  know 
what  these  two  are: — "If  any  man  come  to  me  and 
hate  not  his  father  and  mother — he  cannot  be  my  dis- 
ciple. ' '  %     And  the  rebuke  to  Peter  :   ' '  Get  thee  behind 

*  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  660.  f  P.  641. 

X  L,uke  xiv.  26. 


34  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY  I. 

me,  Satan."*   The  citation  of  such  passages  shows  that 
no  passages  to  the  purpose  could  be  found. 

It  may  be  regarded  therefore  as  a  general  rule,  that 
none  of  the  injunctions  or  permissions  which  formed 
a  part  of  the  former  dispensations  can  be  referred  to  as 
of  authority  to  us,  except  so  far  as  they  are  coincident 
with  the  Christian  law.  To  our  own  Master  we  stand 
or  fall ;  and  our  Master  is  Christ. — And  in  estimating 
this  coincidence,  it  is  not  requisite  to  show  that  a  given 
rule  or  permission  of  the  former  dispensations  is  speci- 
fically superseded  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  sufficient 
if  it  is  not  accordant  with  the  general  spirit  ;  and  this 
consideration  assumes  greater  weight  when  it  is  con- 
nected with  another  which  is  hereafter  to  be  noticed — 
that  it  is  by  the  general  spirit  of  the  Christian  morality 
that  many  of  the  duties  of  man  are  to  be  discovered. 

Yet  it  is  always  to  be  remembered,  that  the  laws 
which  are  thus  superseded  were,  nevertheless,  the  laws 
of  God.  L,et  not  the  reader  suppose  that  we  would 
speak  or  feel  respecting  them  otherwise  than  with  that 
reverence  which  their  origin  demands — or  that  we 
would  take  any  thing  from  their  present  obligation  but 
that  which  is  taken  by  the  Lawgiver  himself.  It  may 
indeed  be  observed,  that  in  all  his  dispensations  there 
is  a  harmony,  a  one  pervading  principle,  which,  with- 
out other  evidence,  indicates  that  they  proceeded  from 
the  same  authority.  The  variations  are  circumstantial 
rather  than  fundamental ;  and,  after  all,  the  great 
principles  in  which  they  accord,  far  outweigh  the  par- 
ticular applications  in  which  they  differ.  The  Mosaic 
Dispensation  was  ' '  a  schoolmaster ' '  to  bring  us,  not 
merely  through  the  medium  of  types  and  prophecies, 
but  through  its  moral  law,  to  Christ.  Both  the  one 
and  the  other  were  designed  as  preparatives ;  and  it 
was  probably  as  true  of  these  moral  laws  as  of  the 

*  Mark  viii.  33. 


CHAP.    V-]  CHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  35 

prophecies,  that  the  Jews  did  not  perceive  their  rela- 
tionship to  Christianity  as  it  was  actually  introduced 
into  the  world. 


Respecting  the  variations  of  the  moral  law,  some 
persons  greatly  and  very  needlessly  perplex  themselves 
by  indulging  in  such  questions  as  these. — "If,"  say 
they,  "  God  be  perfect  and  if  all  the  dispensations  are 
communications  of  His  will,  how  happens  it  that  they 
are  not  uniform  in  their  requisitions  ?  How  happens 
it  that  that  which  was  required  by  Infinite  Knowledge 
at  one  time,  was  not  required  by  Infinite  Knowledge 
at  another?"  I  answer — I  cannot  tell.  And  what 
then  ?  Does  the  enquirer  think  this  a  sufficient  reason 
for  rejecting  the  authority  of  the  Christian  law?  If 
inability  to  discover  the  reasons  of  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God  be  a  good  'motive  to  doubt  its  authority, 
we  may  involve  .ourselves  in  doubts  without  end. — 
Why  does  a  Being  who  is  infinitely  pure,  permit  moral 
evil  in  the  world  ?  Why  does  he  who  is  perfectly  be- 
nevolent permit  physical  suffering  ?  Why  did  he  suffer 
our  first  parents  to  fall?  Why,  after  they  had  fallen, 
did  he  not  immediately  repair  the  loss  ?  Why  was  the 
Messiah's  appearance  deferred  for  four  thousand  years? 
Why  is  not  the  religion  of  the  Messiah  universally 
known  and  universally  operative  at  the  present  day  ? 
To  all  these  questions  and  to  many  others,  no  answrer 
can  be  given  ;  and  the  difficulty  arising  from  them  is 
as  great,  if  we  choose  to  make  difficulties  for  ourselves, 
as  that  which  arises  from  variations  In  his  moral  laws. 
Even  in  infidelity  we  shall  find  no  rest ;  the  objections 
lead  us  onward  to  atheism.  He  who  will  not  believe 
in  a  Deity  unless  he  can  reconcile  all  the  facts  before 
his  eyes  with  his  notions  of  the  divine  attributes,  must 
deny  that  a  Deity  exists.  I  talked  of  rest : — Alas  ! 
there  is  no  rest  in  infidelity  or  in  atheism.     To  disbe- 


36  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY  I. 

lieve  in  revelation  or  in  God,  is  not  to  escape  from  a 
belief  in  things  which  you  do  not  comprehend,  but  to 
transfer  your  belief  to  a  new  class  of  such  things.  Un- 
belief is  credulity.  The  infidel  is  more  credulous  than 
the  Christian,  and  the  atheist  is  the  most  credulous  of 
mankind  :  that  is,  he  believes  important  propositions 
upon  less  evidence  than  any  other  man,  and  in  opposi- 
tion to  greater. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  anxiety  of  some  writers 
to  reconcile  some  of  the  facts  before  us  with  the 
"  moral  perfections ' '  of  the  Deity;  and  it  is  instructive 
to  observe  into  what  doctrines  they  are  led.  They 
tell  us  that  all  the  evil  and  all  the  pain  in  the 
world,  are  parts  of  a  great  system  of  Benevolence. 
' '  The  moral  and  physical  evil  observable  in  the  system, 
according  to  men's  limited  views  of  it,  are  necessary 
parts  of  the  great  plan  ;  all  tending  ultimately  to  pro- 
duce the  greatest  sum  of  happiness  upon  the  whole, 
not  only  with  respect  to  the  system  in  general,  but  to 
each  individual,  according  to  the  station  he  occupies  in 
it."*  They  affirm  that  God  is  an  "  allwise  Being, 
who  directs  all  the  movements  of  nature,  and  who  is 
determined,  by  his  own  unalterable  perfections,  to 
maintain  in  it  at  all  times,  the  greatest  possible  quan- 
tity of  happiness,  "f  The  Creator  found,  therefore, 
that  to  inflict  the  misery  which  now  exists,  was  the 
best  means  of  promoting  this  happiness — that  to  have 
abated  the  evil,  the  suffering,  or  the  misery,  would  be 
to  have  diminished  the  sum  of  felicity — and  that  men 
could  not  have  •been  better  or  more  at  ease  than  they 

*  This  is  given  as  the  belief  of  Dr.  Priestly.  See  Memoirs  : 
Ap.  No.  5. 

f  Adam  Smith  :  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments.  See  also  T. 
Southwood  Smith's  Illustrations  of  the  Divine  Government,  in 
which  unbridled  license  of  speculation  has  led  the  writer  into 
some  instructive  absurdities. 


CHAP,  V.]  CHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  37 

are,  without  making  them  on  the  whole  more  vicious 
or  unhappy! — These  things  are  beacons  which  should 
warn  us.  These  speculations  show  that  not  only  re- 
ligion, but  reason,  dictates  the  propriety  of  acquiesc- 
ing in  that  degree  of  ignorance  in  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  leave  us  ;  because  they  show,  that  attempts  to 
acquire  knowledge  may  conduct  us  to  folly.  These  are 
subjects  upon  which  he  acts  most  rationally,  who  says 
to  his  reason — be  still. 

MODE  OF  APPLYING  THE   PRECEPTS  OF  SCRIPTURE 
TO  QUESTIONS  OF  DUTY. 

It  is  remarkable  that  many  of  these  precepts,  and  es- 
pecially those  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  are  delivered, 
not  systematically  but  occasionally.  They  are  distrib- 
uted through  occasional  discourses  and  occasional  let- 
ters. Except  in  the  instance  of  the  law  of  Moses,  the 
speaker  or  wTriter  rarely  set  about  a  formal  exposition 
of  moral  truth.  The  precepts  wTere  delivered  as  circum- 
stances called  them  forth  or  made  them  needful. 
There  is  nothing  like  a  system  of  morality  ;  nor,  con- 
sequently, does  there  exist  that  completeness,  that  dis- 
tinctness in  defining  and  accuracy  in  limiting,  which, 
in  a  system  of  morality,  we  expect  to  find.  Many  rules 
are  advanced  in  short  absolute  prohibitions  or  injunc- 
tions, without  assigning  any  of  those  exceptions  to  their 
practical  application,  which  the  majority  of  such  rules 
require. — The  enquiry,  in  passing,  may  be  permitted — 
Why  are  these  things  so  ?  When  it  is  considered  what 
the  Christian  dispensation  is,  and  what  it  is  designed 
to  effect  upon  the  conduct  of  man,  it  cannot  be  sup- 
posed that  the  incompleteness  of  its  moral  precepts 
happened  by  inadvertence.  The  precepts  of  the  for- 
mer dispensation  are  much  more  precise  ;  and  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  supposed  that  the  more  perfect  dispensa- 
tion would  have  had  a  less  precise  law,  unless  the  de- 


38  PATRIARCHAL.    MOSAIC,   AND  [ESSAY   I. 

ficiency  were  to  be  compensated  from  some  other 
authoritative  source  : — which  remark  is  offered  as  a 
reason,  a  priori,  for  expecting  that,  in  the  present  dis- 
pensation, God  would  extend  the  operation  of  his  law 
written  in  the  heart. 

But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  this,  it  is  manifest 
that  considerable  care  is  requisite  in  the  application  of 
precepts,  so  delivered,  to  the  conduct  of  life.  To 
apply  them  in  all  cases  literally,  were  to  act  neither 
reasonably  nor  consistently  with  the  designs  of  the 
Lawgiver  :  to  regard  them  in  all  cases  as  mere  general 
directions,  and  to  subject  them  to  the  unauthorized  re- 
vision of  man,  were  to  deprive  them  of  their  proper 
character  and  authority  as  divine  laws.  In  proposing 
some  grounds  for  estimating  the  practical  obligation  of 
these  precepts,  I  would  be  first  allowed  to  express  the 
conviction,  that  the  simple  fact  that  such  a  disquisition 
is  needed,  and  that  the  moral  duties  are  to  be  gathered 
rather  by  implication  or  general  tenor  than  from  spe- 
cific and  formal  rules,  is  one  indication  amongst  the 
many,  that  the  dispensation  of  which  these  precepts 
form  a  part,  stands  not  in  words  but  in  power  :  and  I 
hope  to  be  forgiven,  even  in  a  book  of  morality,  if  I  ex- 
press the  conviction  that  none  can  fulfil  their  requisi- 
tions— that  none  indeed  can  appreciate  them — without 
some  participation  in  this  ' '  power. ' '  I  say  he  cannot 
appreciate  them.  Neither  the  morals  nor  the  religion 
of  Christianity  can  be  adequately  estimated  by  the 
man  who  sits  down  to  the  New  Testament,  with  no 
other  prepartion  than  that  which  is  necessary  in  sitting 
down  to  Euclid  or  Newton.  There  must  be  some  pre- 
paration of  heart  as  well  as  integrity  of  understanding 
— or,  as  the  appropriate  language  of  the  volume  itself 
would  express  it,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  become 
in  some  degree,  the  "  sheep"  of  Christ  before  we  can 
accurately  ' '  know  his  voice. ' ' 


CHAP.    V.]  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS.  39 

There  is  one  clear  and  distinct  ground  upon  which 
we  may  limit  the  application  of  a  precept  that  is  couched 
in  absolute  language — the  unlawfulness,  in  any 
given  conjuncture,  of  obeying  it.  ' '  Submit  yourselves 
to  every  ordinance  of  man."*  This,  literally,  is  an 
unconditional  command.  But  if  we  were  to  obey  it 
unconditionally,  we  should  sometimes  comply  with 
human,  in  opposition  to  divine  laws.  In  such  cases 
then,  the  obligation  is  clearly  suspended  ;  and  this  dis- 
tinction, the  first  teachers  of  Christianity  recognized  in 
their  own  practice.  When  an  "  ordinance  of  man" 
required  them  to  forbear  the  promulgation  of  the  new 
religion,  they  refused  obedience  ;  and  urged  the  befit- 
ting expostulation — "Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight 
of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than  unto  God, 
judge  ye."f  So,  too,  with  the  filial  relationship: 
'  ■  Children  obey  your  parents  in  all  things. ' '  J  But  a 
parent  may  require  his  child  to  lie  or  steal ;  and  there- 
fore when  a  parent  requires  obedience  in  such  things 
his  authority  ceases,  and  the  obligation  to  obedience  is 
taken  away  by  the  moral  law  itself.  The  precept,  so 
far  as  the  present  ground  of  exception  applies,  is  virtu- 
ally this  :  Obey  your  parents  in  all  things,  unless  diso- 
bedience is  required  by  the  will  of  God.  Or  the  sub- 
ject might  be  illustrated  thus  :  The  Author  of  Christi- 
anity reprobates  those  who  love  father  or  mother  more 
than  himself.  The  paramount  love  to  God  is  to  be 
manifested  by  obedience. §  So,  then,  we  are  to  obey 
the  commands  of  God  in  preference  to  those  of  our 
parents.  ' '  All  human  authority  ceases  at  the  point 
where  obedience  becomes  criminal. "|| 

Of  some  precepts,  it  is  evident  that  they  were  de- 
signed to  be  understood  conditionally.     "  When  thou 

*  i  Pet.  ii.  13.  f  Acts,  iv.  19.  J  Col.  iii.  20. 

g  If  ye  love  me,  keep  my  commandments — John  xiv.  15. 
II  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil. 


4Q  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND   .  [ESSAY   I. 

pray  est,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  when  thou  hast 
shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father  which  is  in  secret."^} 
This  precept  is  conditional.  I  doubt  not  that  it  is  con- 
sistent with  his  will  that  the  greater  number  of  the 
supplications  which  man  offers  at  his  throne  shall  be 
offered  in  secret ;  yet,  that  the  precept  does  not  ex- 
clude the  exercise  of  public  prayer,  is  evident  from 
this  consideration,  if  from  no  other,  that  Christ  and  his 
apostles  themselves  practiced  it. 

Some  precepts  are  figurative,  and  describe  the  spirit 
and  temper  that  should  govern  us,  rather  than  the  par- 
ticular actions  that  we  should  perform.  Of  this  there 
is  an  example  in,  "  Whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go 
a  mile,  go  with  him  twain."*  In  promulgating  some 
precepts  a  principle  object  appears  to  have  been,  to  sup- 
ply sanctions.  Thus  is  the  case  of  Civil  Obedience:  we 
are  to  obey  because  the  Deity  authorizes  the  institution 
of  Civil  Government — because  the  magistrate  is  the 
minister  of  God  for  good  ;  and,  accordingly,  we  are  to 
obey  not  from  considerations  of  necessity  only,  but  of 
duty  ;  "not  only  for  wrath,  but  for  conscience  sake."f 
One  precept,  if  we  accept  it  literally,  would  enjoin  us 
to  "hate"  our  parents;  and  this  acceptation,  Milton 
appears  actually  to  have  adopted.  One  would  enjoin 
us  to  accumulate  no  property  :  \ '  Lay  not  up  for  your- 
selves treasures  upon  earth. "J  Such  rules  are  seldom 
mistaken  in  practice  ;  and,  it  may  be  observed,  that 
this  is  an  indication  of  their  practical  wisdom,  and  their 
practical  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  man.  It  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  pronounce,  as  occasions  arise,  a  large 
number  of  moral  precepts  in  unconditional  language  and 
yet  to  secure  them  from  the  probability  of  even  great 
misconstructions.  Let  the  reader  make  the  experiment. 
— Occasionally,  but  it  is  only  occasionally,  a  sincere 
Christian,  in  his  anxiety  to  conform  to  the  moral  law, 
\  Matt.  vi.  6.      *  Matt.  v.  41.      f  Rom.  xiii.  5.      J  Matt.  vi.  19. 


CHAP.   V.]  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS.  41 

accepts  such  precepts  in  a  more  literal  sense  than  that 
in  which  they  appear  to  have  been  designed  to  be 
applied.  I  once  saw  a  book  that  endeavored  to  prove 
the  unlawfulness  of  accumulating  any  property  ;  upon 
the  authority,  primarily,  of  this  last  quoted  precept. 
The  principle  upon  which  the  writer  proceeded  was  just 
and  right — that  it  is  necessary  to  conform  uncondi- 
tionally, to  the  expressed  will  of  God.  The  defect  was 
in  the  criticism  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  ascertaining  what 
that  will  did  actually  require. 

Another  obviously  legitimate  ground  of  limiting  the 
application  of  absolute  precepts,  is  afforded  us  in  just 
biblical  criticism.  Not  that  critical  disquisitions  are 
often  necessary  to  the  upright  man  who  seeks  for  the 
knowledge  of  his  duties.  God  has  not  left  the  know- 
ledge of  his  moral  law  so  remote  from  the  sincere 
seekers  of  his  will.  But  in  deducing  public  rules  as 
authoritative  upon  mankind,  it  is  needful  to  take  into 
account  those  considerations  which  criticism  supplies. 
The  construction  of  the  original  languages  and  their 
peculiar  phraseology,  the  habits,  manners,  and  prevail- 
ing opinions  of  the  times,  and  the  circumstances  under 
which  a  precept  was  delivered,  are  evidently  amongst 
these  considerations.  And  literary  criticism  is  so  much 
the  more  needed,  because  the  great  majority  of  man- 
kind have  access  to  Scripture  only  through  the  medium 
of  translations. 

But  in  applying  all  these  limitations  to  the  absolute 
precepts  of  Scripture,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  we 
are  not  subjecting  their  authority  to  inferior  principles. 
We  are  not  violating  the  principle  upon  which  these 
essays  proceed,  that  the  expression  of  the  Divine  will 
is  our  ultimate  law.  We  are  only  ascertaining  what 
that  expression  is.  If,  after  just  and  authorized  exam- 
ination, any  precept  should  still  appear  to  stand  imper- 
ative in  its  absolute  fprm,  we  accept  it  as  obligatory  in 


42  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY    I. 

that  form.  Many  such  precepts  there  are  ;  and  being 
such,  we  allow  no  considerations  of  convenience,  nor  of 
expediency,  nor  considerations  of  any  other  kind,  to 
dispense  with  their  authority. 

One  great  use  of  such  inquiries  as  these,  is  to  vindi- 
cate to  the  apprehensions  of  men  the  authority  of  the 
precepts  themselves.  It  is  very  likely  to  happen,  and 
to  some  negligent  enquirers  it  does  happen,  that  seeing 
a  precept  couched  in  unconditional  language,  which  yet 
cannot  be  unconditionally  obeyed,  they  call  in  question 
its  general  obligation.  Their  minds  fix  upon  the  idea 
of  some  consequences  which  would  result  from  a  literal 
obedience,  and  feeling  assured  that  those  consequences 
ought  not  to  be  undertaken,  they  set  aside  the  precept 
itself.  They  are  at  little  pains  to  enquire  what  the 
proper  requisitions  of  the  precept  are — glad,  perhaps, 
of  a  specious  excuse  for  not  regarding  it  at  all.  The 
careless  reader,  perceiving  that  a  literal  compliance  with 
the  precept  to  give  the  cloak  to  him  who  takes  a  coat, 
would  be  neither  proper  nor  right,  rejects  the  whole  pre- 
cept of  which  it  forms  an  illustration  ;  and  in  doing 
this,  rejects  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  and  important, 
and  sacred  requisitions  of  the  Christian  law.* 


There. are  two  modes  in  which  moral  obligations  are 
imposed  in  Scripture — by  particular  precepts,  and  by 
general  rules.  The  one  prescribes  a  duty  upon  one 
subject,  the  other  upon  very  many.  The  applicability 
of  general  rules  is  nearly  similar  to  that  of  what  is 
usually  called  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  the  spirit  of  the 
moral  law;  which  spirit  is  of  very  wide  embrace  in  its  ap- 
plication to  the  purposes  of  life.  '  'In  estimating  the  value 
of  a  moral  rule,  we  are  to  have  regard  not  only  to  the 
particular  duty  but  the  general  spirit;  not  only  to  what 
it  directs  us  to  do,  but  to  the  character  which  a  com- 

*  Matt.  v.  38. 


CHAP.   V.]  CHHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  43 

pliance  with  its  direction  is  likely  to  form  in  us."* 
In  this  manner,  some  particular  precepts  become,  in 
.  fact,  general  rules ;  and  the  duty  that  results  from 
these  rules,  from  this  spirit,  is  as  obligatory  as  that 
which  is  imposed  by  a  specific  injunction.  Christianity 
requires  us  to  maintain  universal  benevolence  towards 
mankind  ;  aud  he  who,  in  his  conduct  towards  another, 
disregards  this  benevolence,  is  as  truly  and  sometimes 
as  flagrantly  a  violator  of  the  moral  law,  as  if  he  had 
transgressed  the  command,  "Thou  shalt  not  steal." 
This  doctrine  is  indeed  recommended  by  a  degree  of 
utility  that  makes  its  adoption  almost  a  necessity  ;  be- 
cause no  number  of  specific  precepts  would  be  sufficient 
for  the  purposes  of  moral  instruction  :  so  that,  if  we 
were  destitute  of  this  species  of  general  rules,  we  should 
frequently  be  destitute,  so  far  as  external  precepts  are 
concerned,  of  any.  It  appears  by  a  note  to  the  work 
which  has  just  been  cited,  that  in  the  Mussulman  code, 
which  proceeds  upon  the  system  of  a  precise  rule  for  a 
precise  question,  there  have  been  promulgated  seventy  - 
five,  thousand  precepts.  I  regard  the  wide  practical 
applicability  of  some  of  the  Christian  precepts  as  an 
argument  of  great  wisdom.  They  impose  many  duties 
in  few  words  ;  or  rather,  they  convey  a  great  mass  of 
moral  instruction  within  a  sentence  that  all  .may  re- 
member and  that  few  can  mistake.  '  'All  things  what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even 
so  to  them,"f  is  of  greater  utility  in  the  practice  of  life, 
and  is  applicable  to  more  circumstances,  than  a  hundred 
rules  which  presented  the  exact  decree  of  kindness 
or  assistance  that  should  be  afforded  in  prescribed 
cases.  The  Mosaic  law,  rightly  regarded,  conveyed 
many  clear  expositions  of  human  duty  ;  yet  the  quib- 
bling and  captious  scribes  of  old  found,  in  the  literalities 

*  Evidences  of  Christianity  :  p.  2,  c.  2.  f  Matt.  vii.  12. 


44  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY    I. 

of  that  law,  more  plausible  grounds  for  evading  its 
duties,  than  can  be  found  in  the  precepts  of  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures. 

There  are  a  few  precepts  of  which  the  application  is 
so  extensive  in  human  affairs,  that  I  would,  in  con- 
formity with  some  of  the  preceding  remarks,  briefly  en- 
quire into  their  practical  obligation.  Of  these,  that 
which  has  just  been  quoted  for  another  purpose,  "  All 
things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you, 
do  ye  even  so  to  them,"*  is  perhaps  cited  and  recom- 
mended more  frequently  than  any  other.  The  diffi- 
culty of  applying  this  precept  has  induced  some  to 
reject  it  as  containing  a  moral  maxim  which  is  not 
sound  :  but  perhaps  it  will  be  found,  that  the  deficiency 
is  not  in  the  rule  but  in  the  non-applicability  of  the 
cases  to  which  it  has  often  been  applied.  It  is  not  ap- 
plicable when  the  act  which  another  would  that  we 
should  do  to  him,  is  in  itself  unlawful  or  adverse  to  some 
other  portion  of  the  moral  law.  If  I  seize  a  thief  in 
the  act  of  picking  a  pocket,  he  undoubtedly  "would" 
that  I  should  let  him  go ;  and  I,  if  our  situations  were 
exchanged,  should  wish  it  too.  But  I  am  not  therefore  to 
release  him  ;  because,  since  it  is  a  Christian  obligation 
upon  the  magistrate  to  punish  offenders,  the  obligation 
descends  to  me  to  secure  them  .for  punishment.  Be- 
sides, in  every  such  case  I  must  do  as  I  would  be  done 
unto  with  respect  to  all  parties  concerned — the  public 
as  well  as  the  thief.  The  precept,  again,  is  not  appli- 
cable when  the  desire  of  the  second  party  is  such  as  a 
Christian  cannot  lawfully  indulge.  An  idle  and  profli- 
gate man  asks  me  to  give  him  money.  It  would  be 
wrong  to  indulge  such  a  man's  desire,  and  therefore 
the  precept  does  not  apply. 

The  reader  will  perhaps  say  ;  that  a  person's  duties 
*  Matt.  vii.  12. 


CHAP.    V.]  CHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  45 

in  such  cases  are  sufficiently  obvious  without  the  grav- 
ity of  illustration.  Well — but  are  the  principles  upon 
which  the  duties  are  ascertained  thus  obvious  ?  This 
is  the  important  point.  In  the  affairs  of  life,  many 
cases  arise  in  which  a  person  has  to  refer  to  such  prin- 
ciples as  these,  and  in  which,  if  he  does  not  apply  the 
right  principles,  he  will  transgress  the  Christian  law. 
The  law  appears  to  be  in  effect  this,  Do  as  you  would 
be  done  unto,  except  in  those  instances  in  which  to  act 
otherwise  is  permitted  by  Christianity.  Inferior  grounds 
of  limitation  are  often  applied  ;  and  they  are  alwrays 
wrong  ,  because  they  always  subject  the  moral  law  to 
suspension  by  inferior  authorities.  To  do  this,  is  to 
reject  the  authority  of  the  Divine  will,  and  to  place 
this  beautiful  expression  of  that  will  at  the  mercy  of 
every  man's  inclination. 

"  Whether  ye  eat  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do,  do 
all  to  the  glory  of  God."*  I  have  heard  of  the  mem- 
bers of  some  dinner  club  who  had  been  recommended 
to  consider  this  precept,  and  who,  in  their  discussions 
over  the  bottle,  thought  perhaps  that  they  were  argu- 
ing soundly  when  they  held  language  like  this  :  ' '  Am 
I,  in  lifting  this  glass  to  my  mouth,  to  do  it  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  glory  to  God  ?  Is  that  to  be  my 
motive  in  buying  a  horse  or  shooting  a  pheasant?" 
From  such  moralists  much  sagacity  of  discrimination 
was  not  to  be  expected  :  and  these  questions  delighted 
and  probably  convinced  the  club.  The  mistake  of 
these  persons,  and  perhaps  of  some  others,  is,  that  they 
misunderstand  the  rule.  The  promotion  of  the  Divine 
glory  is  not  to  be  the  motive  and  purpose  of  all  our 
actions,  but,  having  actions  to  perform,  we  are  so  to 
perform  them  that  this  glory  shall  be  advanced.  The 
precept  is  in  effect,  Let  your  actions  and  the  motives 
of  them  be  such,  that  others  shall  have  reason  to  honor 
*  i  Cor.  x.  31. 


46  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY   I. 

God  :* — and  a  precept  like  this  is  a  very  sensitive  test  of 
the  purity  of  our  conduct.  I  know  not  whether  there 
is  a  single  rule  of  Christianity  of  which  the  use  is  so 
constant  and  the  application  so  universal.  To  do  as 
we  would  be  done  by,  refers  »to  relative  duties  ;  Not  to 
do  evil  that  good  may  come,  refers  to  particular  circum- 
stances :  but,  To  do  all  things  so  that  the  Deity  may 
be  honored,  refers  to  almost  every  action  of  a  man's 
life.  Happily  the  Divine  glory  is  thus  promoted  by 
some  men  even  in  trifling  affairs — almost  whether  they 
eat  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  thing  they  do.  There  is, 
in  truth,  scarcely  a  more  efficacious  means  of  honoring 
the  Deity,  than  by  observing  a  constant  Christian  man- 
ner of  conducting  our  intercourse  with  men.  He  who 
habitually  maintains  his  allegiance  to  religion  and  to 
purity,  who  is  moderate  and  chaste  in  all  his  pursuits, 
and  who  always  makes  the  prospects  of  the  future  pre- 
dominate over  the  temptations  of  the  present,  is  one  of 
the  most  efficacious  recommenders  of  goodness — one  of 
the  most  impressive  "  preachers  of  righteousness, ' '  — and 
by  consequence,  one  of  the  most  efficient  promoters  of 
the  glory  of  God. 

By  a  part  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  it  appears 
that  he  and  his  coadjutors  had  been  reported  to  hold 
the  doctrine,  that  it  is  lawful  "to  do  evil  that  good 
maycome."f.  This  report  he  declares  is  slanderous; 
and  expresses  his  reprobation  of  those  who  act  upon 
the  doctrine,  by  the  short  and  emphatic  declaration — 
their  condemnation  is  just.  This  is  not  critically  a  pro- 
hibition, but  it  is  a  prohibition  in  effect  ;  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  doctrine  is  reprobated,  induces  the 
belief  that  it  was  so  flagitious  that  it  needed  very  little 

*  ' '  I,et  your  light  so  shine  before  men  that  they  may  see  your 
good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven" — Matt, 
v.  16. 

f  Rom.  iii.  8. 


CHAP.  V.]  CHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  47 

enquiry  or  thought :  in  the  writer's  mind  the  transition 
is  immediate,  from  the  idea  of  the  doctrine  to  the  pun- 
ishment of  those  who  adopt  it. 

Now  the  "evil"  which  is  thus  prohibited,  is,  any 
thing  and  all  things  discordant  with  the  Divine  will ; 
so  that  the  unsophisticated  meaning  of  the  rule  is, 
that  nothing  which  is  contrary  to  the  Christian  law 
may  be  done  for  the  sake  of  attaining  a  beneficial  end. 
Perhaps  the  breach  of  no  moral  rule  is  productive  of 
more  mischief  than  of  this.  That  "the  end  justifies 
the  means,"  is  a  maxim  which  many,  who  condemn  it  as 
a  maxim,  adopt  in  their  practice  :  and  in  political  affairs 
it  is  not  only  habitually  adopted,  but  is  indirectly,  if 
not  openly,  defended  as  right.  If  a  senator  were  to 
object  to  some  measure  of  apparent  public  expediency, 
that  it  was  not  consistent  with  the  moral  law,  he  would 
probably  be  laughed  at  as  a  fanatic  or  a  fool  ;  yet  per- 
haps some  who  are  flippant  with  this  charge  of  fanati- 
cism and  folly  may  be  in  perplexity  for  a  proof.  If  the 
expressed  will  of  God  is  our  paramount  law,  no  proof 
can  be  brought ;  and  in  truth  it  is  not  often  that  it  is 
candidly  attempted.  I  have  not  been  amongst  the  least 
diligent  enquirers  into  the  moral  reasonings  of  men,  but 
honest  and  manly  reasoning  against  this  portion  of 
Scripture  I  have  never  found. 

Of  the  rule,  "  not  to  do  evil  that  good  may  come," 
Dr.  Paley  says,  that  it  "is,  for  the  most  part,  a  salutary 
caution."  A  person  might  as  well  say  that  the  rule 
1 '  not  to  commit  murder  "  is  a  salutary  caution.  There 
is  no  caution  in  the  matter,  but  an  imperative  law. 
But  he  proceeds  : — "  Strictly  speaking,  that  cannot  be 
evil  from  which  good  comes."*  Now  let  the  reader 
consider  : — Paul  says,  ' '  You  may  not  do  evil  that  good 
may  come  .-"  Ay,  but,  says  the  philosopher,  if  good  does 
come,  the  acts  that  bring  it  about  are  NOT  evil.  What 
*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  2.  c.  8. 


48  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,    AND  [ESSAY    I. 

the  apostle  would  have  said  of  such  a  reasoner,  I  will 
not  trust  my  pen  to  suppose.  The  reader  will  perceive 
the  foundation  of  this  reasoning.  It  assumes  that  good 
and  evil  are  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  expressions  of 
the.  will  of  God,  but  by  the  effects  of  actions.  The 
question  is  clearly  fundamental.  If  expediency  be 
the  ultimate  test  of  rectitude,  Dr.  Paley  is  right  ;  if 
the  expressions  of  the  Divine  will  are  the  ultimate  test, 
he  is  wrong.  You  must  sacrifice  the  one  authority  or 
the  other.  If  this  will  is  the  greater,  consequences  are 
not :  if  consequences  are  the  greater,  this  will  is  not. 
But  this  question  is  not  now  to  be  discussed  :  it  may 
however  be  observed  that  the  interpretation  which  the 
rule  has  been  thus  made  to  bear,  appears  to  be  contra- 
dicted by  the  terms  of  the  rule  itself.  The  rule  of 
Christianity  is,  evil  may  not  be  committed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  good  :  the  rule  of  the  philosophy  is,  evil  may 
not  be  committed,  except  for  the  purpose  of  good.  Are 
these  precepts  identical  ?  Is  there  not  a  fundamental 
variance,  an  absolute  contrariety  between  them  ?  Chris- 
tianity does  not  speak  of  evil  and  good  as  contingent,  but 
as  fixed  qualities.  You  cannot  convert  the  one  into  the 
other  by  disquisitions  about  expediency.  In  morals, 
there  is  no  philosopher's  stone  that  can  convert  evil 
into  good  with  a  touch.  Our  labors,  so  long  as  the  au- 
thority of  the  moral  law  is  acknowledged,  will  end  like 
those  of  the  physical  alchymist  :  after  all  our  efforts  at 
transmutation,  lead  will  not  become  gold — evil  will  not 
become  good.  However  there  is  one  subject  of  satis- 
faction in  considering  such  reasonings  as  these.  They 
prove,  negatively,  the  truth  which  they  assail ;  for  that 
against  which  nothing  but  sophistry  can  be  urged,  is 
undoubtly  true.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  if  evil  may 
be  done  for  the  sake  of  good,  all  the  precepts  of  Scrip- 
ture which  define  or  prohibit  evil  are  laws  no  longer  ; 
for  that  cannot  in  any  rational   use   of    language   be 


CHAP.    V.]  CHRISTIAN   DISPENSATIONS.  49 

called  a  law  in  respect  of  those  to  whom  it  is  directed, 
if  they  are  at  liberty  to  neglect  it  when  they  think  fit. 
These  precepts  may  be  advices,  recommendations, 
1  ■  salutary  cautions  ' '  but  th§y  are  not  laws.  They 
may  suggest  hints,  but  they  do  not  impose  duties. 

With  respect  to  the  legitimate  grounds  of  exceptions 
or  limitation  in  the  application  of  this  rule,  there 
appear  to  be  few  or  none.  The  only  question  is,  What 
actions  are  evil?  Which  question  is  to  be  determined, 
ultimately,  by  the  will  of  God. 

BENEVOLENCE  AS   IT   IS   PROPOSED  IN  THE  CHRIS- 
TIAN SCRIPTURES. 

In  enquiring  into  the  great  principles  of  that  moral 
system  which  the  Christian  revelation  institutes,  we 
discover  one  remarkable  characteristic,  one  pervading 
peculiarity  by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  every 
other — the  paramount  emphasis  which  it  lays  upon  the 
exercise  of  pure  Benevolence.  It  will  be  found  that 
this  preference  of  ' '  L,ove ' '  is  wise  as  it  is  unexampled, 
and  that  no  other  general  principle  would  effect,  with 
any  approach  to  the  same  completeness,  the  best  and 
highest  purposes  of  morality.  How  easy  soever  it  be 
for  us,  to  whom  the  character  and  obligations  of  this 
benevolence  are  comparatively  familiar,  to  perceive  the 
wisdom  of  placing  it  at  the  foundation  of  the  moral 
law,  we  are  indebted  for  the  capacity  not  to  our  own 
sagaciousness,  but  to  light  which  has  been  communi- 
cated from  heaven.  That  schoolmaster  the  law  of 
Moses  never  taught,  and  the  speculations  of  philosophy 
never  discovered,  that  love  was  the  fulfilment  of  the 
moral  law.  Eighteen  hundred  years  ago  this  doctrine 
was  a  new  commandment. 

Iyove  is  made  the  test  of  the  validity  of  our  claims  to 
the  Christian  character — "  By  this  shall  all  men  know 


50  PATRIARCHAL,    MOSAIC,   AND  [ESSAY  I. 

that  ye  are  my  disciples."*  Again,  "Love  one  another. 
He  that  loveth  another  hath  fulfilled  the  law.  For 
this,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,  Thou  shalt  not  kill, 
Thou  shalt  not  steal,  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witnesss, 
Thou  shalt  not  covet ;  and  if  there  be  any  other  command- 
ment, it  is  briefly  comprehended  in  this  saying,  namely, 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  Love  worketh 
no  ill  to  his  neighbor  ;  therefore  love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law."t  It  is  not  therefore  surprising  that  after 
an  enumeration,  in  another  place,  of  various  duties, 
the  same  dignified  apostle  says,  "Above  all  these  things 
put  on  charity,  which  is  the  bond  oiperfectness. ' '  %  The 
inculcation  of  this  benevolence  is  as  frequent  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures  as  its  practical  utility  is  great.  He 
who  would  look  through  the  volume  will  find  that  no 
topic  is  so  frequently  introduced,  no  obligations  so  em- 
phatically enforced,  no  virtue  to  which  the  approbation 
of  God  is  so  specially  promised.  It  is  the  theme  of  all 
the  ' '  apostolic  exhortations,  that  with  which  their 
morality  begins  and  ends,  from  which  all  their  details 
and  enumerations  set  out  and  into  which  they  return.  "§ 
"He  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in  God,  and  God 
in  him." ||  More  emphatical  language  cannot  be  em- 
ployed. It  exalts  to  the  utmost  the  character  of  the 
virtue,  and,  in  effect,  promises  its  possessor  the  utmost 
favor  and  felicity.  If  then,  of  faith,  hope  and  love, 
love  be  the  greatest  ;  if  it  be  by  the  test  of  love  that 
our  pretentions  to  Christianity  are  to  be  tried  ;  if  all 
the  relative  duties  of  morality  are  embraced  in  one 
word,  and  that  word  is  love  ;  it  is  obviously  needful 
that,  in  a  book  like  this,  the  requisitions  of  benevolence 
should  be  habitually  regarded  in  the  prosecution  of  its 
enquiries.  And  accordingly  the  reader  will  sometimes 
be  invited  to  sacrifice  inferior  considerations  to  these 

*  John  xiii.  35.  f  Rom.  xiii.  9.  t  Col.  "*•  T4- 

\  Evid.  Christianity,  p.  2.  c.  2.  II  1  John  iv.  16. 


CHAP.    V.]  CHRISTIAN  DISPENSATIONS.  5* 

requisitions,  and  to  give  to  the  law  of  love  that  para- 
mount station  in  which  it  has  been  placed  by  the 
authority  of  God. 

It  is  certain  that  almost  every  offence  against  the  rel- 
ative duties,  has  its  origin,  if  not  in  the  malevolent 
propensities,  at  least  in  those  propensities  which  are 
incongruous  with  love.  I  know  not  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible to  disregard  any  one  obligation  that  respects  the 
intercourse  of  man  with  man,  without  violating  this 
great  Christian  law.  This  universal  applicability  may 
easily  be  illustrated  by  referring  to  the  obligations  of 
Justice,  obligations  which,  in  civilized  communities,  are 
called  into  operation  more  frequently  than  almost  any 
other.  nHe  who  estimates  the  obligations  of  justice  by 
a  reference  to  that  benevolence  which  Christianity  pre- 
scribes, will  form -to  himself  a  much  more  pure  and  per- 
fect standard  than  he  who  refers  to  the  law  of  the 
land,  to  the  apprehension  of  exposure,  or  to  the  desire 
of  reputation.  J  There  are  many  ways  in  which  a  man 
can  be  urljust  without  censure  from  the  public,  and 
without  violating  the  laws  ;  but  there  is  no  way  in 
which  he  can  be  unjust  without  disregarding  Christian 
benevolence.  It  is  an  universal  and  very  sensitive 
test.  He  who  does  regard  it,  who  uniformly  considers 
whether  his  conduct  towards  another  is  consonant  with 
pure  good  will,  cannot  be  voluntarily  unjust  ;  nor  can 
he  who  commits  injustice  do  it  without  the  conscious- 
ness, if  he  will  reflect,  that  he  is  violating  the  law  of 
love.  That  integrity  which  is  founded  upon  love, 
when  compared  with  that  which  has  any  other  basis,  is 
recommended  by  its  honor  and  dignity  as  well  as  by 
its  rectitude.  It  is  more  worthy  the  man  as  well  as 
the  Christian,  more  beautiful  in  the  eye  of  infidelity  as 
well  as  of  religion. 

It  were  easy,  if  it  were  necessary,  to  show  in  what 
manner  the  law  of  benevolence  applies  to  other  relative 


52  THE   IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

duties,  and  in  what  manner,  when  applied,  it  purifies 
and  exalts  the  fulfilment  of  them.  But  our  present 
business  is  with  principles  rather  than  with  their  spe- 
cific application. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  obligations  of  this  benevolence 
are  not  merely  prohibitory — directing  us  to  avoid 
"  working  ill  "  to  another,  but  mandatory — requiring 
us  to  do  him  good.  That  benevolence  which  is  mani- 
fested only  by  doing  no  evil,  is  indeed  of  a  very  ques- 
tionable kind.  To  abstain  from  injustice,  to  abstain 
from  violence,  to  abstain  from  slander,  is  compatible 
with  an  extreme  deficiency  of  love.  There  are  many 
who  are  neither  slanderous,  nor  ferocious,  nor  unjust, 
who  have  yet  very  little  regard  for  the  benevolence  of 
the  gospel.  In  the  illustrations  therefore  of  the  obli- 
gations of  morality,  whether  private  or  political,  it  will 
sometimes  become  our  business  to  state,  what  this 
benevolence  requires  as  well  as  what  it  forbids.  The 
legislator  whose  laws  are  contrived  only  for  the  detec- 
tion and  punishment  of  offenders,  fulfils  but  half  his 
duty  :  if  he  would  conform  to  the  Christian  standard, 
he  must  provide  also  for  their  reformation. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    IMMEDIATE    COMMUNICATION    OF    THE    WILL 
.  OF  GOD. 

Conscience — Its  nature— Its  authority — Review  of  opinions  re- 
specting a  moral  sense — Bishop  Butler — Lord  Bacon — Locke — 
Southey— Adam  Smith— Paley — Milton— Judge  Hale— Mar- 
cus Antoninus— Epictetus — Seneca — Paul— That  every  human 
being  possesses  a  moral  law — Pagans — Gradations  of  light — 
Prophecy — The  immediate  communication  of  the  Divine  will 
perpetual— Of  national  vices  :  Infanticide  :  Duelling— Of  sav- 
age life. 
The  reader  is  solicited  to  approach  this  subject  with 

that    mental    seriousness   which   its   nature   requires. 


UNIVERSITY 

CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WIW,  OF  GOD.  53 

Whatever  be  his  opinions  upon  the  subject,  whether  he 
believes  in  the  reality  of  such  communication  or  not,  he 
ought  not  even  to  think  respecting  it  but  with  feelings 
of  seriousness. 

In  endeavoring  to  investigate  this  reality,  it  becomes 
especially  needful  to  distinguish  the  communication  of 
the  will  of  God  from  those  mental  phenomena  with 
which  it  has  very  commonly  been  intermingled  and 
confounded.  The  want  of  this  distinction  has  occa- 
sioned a  confusion  which  has  been  greatly  injurious  to 
the  cause  of  truth.  It  has  occasioned  great  obscurity  of 
opinion  respecting  Divine  instruction  ;  and  by  associat- 
ing error  with  truth,  has  frequently  induced  scepticism 
respecting  the  truth  itself. — When  an  intelligent  person 
perceives  that  infallible  truth  or  Divine  authority  is 
described  as  belonging  to  the  dictates  of  ' '  Conscience, ' ' 
and  when  he  perceives,  as  he  must  perceive,  that  these 
dictates  are  various  and  sometimes  contradictory  ;  he 
is  in  danger  of  concluding  that  no  unerring  and  no  Di- 
vine guidance  is  accorded  to  man. 

Upon  this  serious  subject  it  is  therefore  peculiarly 
necessary  to  endeavor  to  attain  distinct  ideas,  and  to 
employ  those  words  only  which  convey  distinct  ideas 
to  other  men.  The  first  section  of  the  present  chapter 
will  accordingly  be  devoted  to  some  brief  observations 
respecting  the  conscience,  its  nature,  and  its  authority; 
by  which  it  is  hoped  the  reader  will  see  sufficient  reason 
to  distinguish  its  dictates  from  that  higher  guidance, 
respecting  which  it  is  the  object  of  the  present  chapter 
to  enquire. 

For  a  kindred  purpose,  it  appears  requisite  to  offer  a 
short  review  of  popular  and  philosophical  opinions  re- 
specting a  Moral  Sense.  These  opinions  will  be  found 
to  have  been  frequently  expressed  in  great  indistinct- 
ness and  ambiguity  of  language.  The  purpose  of  the 
writer  in   referring   to   these   opinions,  is   to  enquire 


54  THE    IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY    I 

whether  they  do  not  generally  involve  a  recognition — 
obscurely  perhaps,  but  still  a  recognition — of  the  prin- 
ciple, that  God  communicates  his  will  to  the  mind.  If 
they  do  this,  and  if  they  do  it  without  design  or  con- 
sciousness, no  trifling  testimony  is  afforded  to  the  truth 
of  the  principle  :  for  how  should  this  principle  thus 
secretly  recommended  itself  to  the  minds  of  men,  ex- 
cept by  the  influence  of  its  own  evidence  ? 


SECTION   I. 
CONSCIENCE,  ITS  NATURE  AND  AUTHORITY. 

In  the  attempt  to  attach  distinct  notions  to  the  term 
"  Conscience,"  we  have  to  request  the  reader  not  to 
estimate  the  accuracy  of  our  observations  by  the  notions 
which  he  may  have  habitually  connected  with  the  word. 
Our  disquisition  is  not  about  terms  but  truths.  If  the 
observations  are  in  themselves  just,  our  principal  object 
is  attained.  The  secondary  object,  that  of  connecting 
truth  with  appropriate  terms,  is  only  so  far  attain- 
able by  a  writer,  as  shall  be  attained  by  an  uniform 
employment  of  words  in  determinate  senses  in  his  own 
practice. 

Men  possess  notions  of  right  and  wrong:  they  possess 
a  belief  that,  under  given  circumstances,  they  ought  to 
do  one  thing  or  to  forbear  another.  This  belief  I  would 
call  a  conscientious  belief.  And  when  such  a  belief 
exists  in  a  man's  mind  in  reference  to  a  number  of  ac- 
tions, I  would  call  the  sum  or  aggregate  of  his  notions 
respecting  what  is  right  and  wrong,  his  Conscience. 

To  possess  notions  of  right  and  wrong  in  human  con- 
duct— to  be  convinced  that  we  ought  to  do  or  to  forbear 
an  action — implies  and  supposes  a  sense  of  obligation 
existent  in  the  mind.     A  man  who  feels  that  it  is  wrong 


CHAP.   VI.  J  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  55 

for  him  to  do  a  thing,  possesses  a  sense  of  obligation  to 
refrain.  Into  the  origin  of  this  sense  of  obligation,  or 
how  it  is  induced  into  the  mind,  we  do  not  enquire  :  it 
is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  that  it  exists  ;  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  its  existence  is  consequent  of 
the  will  of  God. 

In  most  men — perhaps  in  all — this  sense  of  obligation 
refers  with  greater  or  less  distinctness,  to  the  will  of  a 
superior  being.  The  impression,  however  obscure,  is, 
in  general,  fundamentally  this  :  I  must  do  so  or  so,  be- 
cause God  requires  it. 

It  is  found  that  this  sense  of  obligation  is  sometimes 
connected,  in  the  minds  of  separate  individuals,  with 
different  actions.  One  man  thinks  he  ought  to  do  a 
thing  from  which  another  thinks  he  ought  to  forbear. 
Upon  the  great  questions  of  morality  there  is  indeed, 
in  general,  a  congruity  of  human  judgment ;  yet  sub- 
jects do  arise  respecting  which  one  man's  conscience 
dictates  an  act  different  from  that  which  is  dictated  by 
another's.  It  is  not  therefore  essential  to  a  conscien- 
tious judgment  of  right  and  wrong,  that  that  judgment 
should  be  in  strict  accordance  with  the  moral  law. 
Some  men's  consciences  dictate  that  which  the  moral 
law  does  not  enjoin  ;  and  this  law  enjoins  some  points 
which  are  not  enforced  by  every  man's  conscience. 
This  is  precisely  the  result  which,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  it  is  reasonable  to  expect.  Of  these  judgments 
respecting  what  is  right,  with  which  the  sense  of  obli- 
gation becomes  from  time  to  time  connected,  some  are 
induced  by  the  instructions  or  example  of  others  ;  some 
by  our  own  reflection  or  enquiry  ;  some  perhaps  from 
the  written  law  of  revelation  ;  and  some,  as  we  have 
cause  to  conclude,  from  the  direct  intimations  of  the  Di- 
vine will. 

It  is  manifest  that  if  the  sense  of  obligation  is  some- 
times connected  with  subjects  that  are  proposed  to  us 


56  THE   IMMEDIATE   COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

merely  by  the  instruction  of  others,  or  if  the  connec- 
tion results  from  the  power  of  association  and  habit,  or 
from  the  fallible  investigations  of  our  own  minds — that 
sense  of  obligation  will  be  connected,  in  different  indi- 
viduals, with  different  subjects.  So  that  it  may  some- 
times happen  that  a  man  can  say,  I  conscientiously 
think  I  ought  to  do  a  certain  action,  and  yet  that  his 
neighbor  can  say,  I  conscientiously  think  the  contrary. 

Such  considerations  enable  us  to  account  for  the  di- 
versity of  the  dictates  of  the  conscience  in  individuals 
respectively.  A  person  is  brought  up  amongst  Catholics, 
and  is  taught  from  his  childhood  that  flesh  ought 
not  to  be  eaten  in  L,ent.  The  arguments  of  those  around 
him,  or  perhaps  their  authority,  satisfy  him  that  what  he 
is  taught  is  truth.  The  sense  of  obligation  thus  becomes 
connected  with  a  refusal  to  eat  flesh  in  I^ent ;  and 
thenceforth  he  says  that  the  abstinence  is  dictated  by 
his  conscience.  A  Protestant  youth  is  taught  the  con- 
trary. Argument  or  authority  satisfies  him  that  flesh 
may  lawfully  be  eaten  every  day  in  the  year.  His 
sense  of  obligation  therefore  is  not  connected  with  the 
abstinence  ;  and  thenceforth  he  says  that  eating  flesh 
in  Lent  does  not  violate  his  conscience.  And  so  of  a 
multitude  of  other  questions. 

When  therefore  a  person  says,  my  conscience  dictates 
to  me  that  I  ought  to  perform  such  an  action,  he  means 
— or  in  the  use  of  such  language  he  ought  to  mean — 
that  the  sense  of  obligation  which  subsists  in  his  mind 
is  connected  with  that  action  ;  that,  so  far  as  his  judg- 
ment is  enlightened,  it  is  a  requisition  of  the  law  of 
God. 

But  not  all  our  opinions  respecting  morality  and  re- 
ligion are  derived  from  education  or  reasoning.  He 
who  finds  in  Scripture  the  precept,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  derives  an  opinion  respecting 
the  duty  of  loving  others  from  the  discovery  of  this 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THE  WII.I,  OF  GOD.  57 

expression  of  the  will  of  God.  His  sense  of  obligation 
is  connected  with  benevolence  towards  others  in  conse- 
quence of  this  discovery  ;  or,  in  other  words,  his  under- 
standing has  been  informed  by  the  moral  law,  and  a 
new  duty  is  added  to  those  which  are  dictated  by  his 
conscience.  Thus  it  is  that  Scripture,  by  informing 
the  judgment,  extends  the  jurisdiction  of  conscience ; 
and  it  is  hence,  in  part,  that  in  those  who  seriously 
study  the  Scriptures,  the  conscience  appears  so  much 
more  vigilant  and  operative  than  in  many  who  do  not 
possess,  or  do  not  regard  them.  Many  of  the  mistakes 
which  education  introduces,  many  of  the  fallacies  to 
which  our  own  speculatious  lead  us,  are  corrected  by 
this  law.  In  the  case  of  our  Catholic,  if  a  reference 
to  Scripture  should  convince  him  that  the  judgment  he 
has  formed  respecting  abstinence  from  flesh  is  not 
founded  on  the  law  of  God,  the  sense  of  obligation 
becomes  detached  from  its  subject ;  and  thenceforth  his 
conscience  ceases  to  dictate  that  he  should  abstain  from 
flesh  in  Lent.  Yet  Scripture  does  not  decide  every 
question  respecting  human  duty,  and  in  some  instances 
individuals  judge  differently  of  the  decisions  which 
Scripture  gives.  This,  again,  occasions  some  diversity 
in  the  dictates  of  the  conscience  ;  it  occasions  the  sense 
of  obligation  to  become  connected  with  dissimilar,  and 
possibly  incompatible,  actions. 

But  another  portion  of  men's  judgments  respecting 
moral  affairs  is  derived  from  immediate  intimations  of 
the  Divine  will.  (This  we  must  be  allowed  for  the  present 
to  assume. )  These  intimations  inform  sometimes  the 
judgment  ;  correct  its  mistakes  ;  and  increase  and  give 
distinctness  to  our  knowledge — thus  operating,  as  the 
Scriptures  operate,  to  connect  the  sense  of  obliga- 
tion more  accurately  with  those  actions  which  are  con- 
formable with  the  will  of  God.  It  does  not,  however, 
follow,  by  any  sort  of  necessity,  that  this  higher  in- 


58  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

struction  must  correct  all  the  mistakes  of  the  judgment; 
that  because  it  imparts  some  light,  that  light  must  be 
perfect  day  ;  that  because  it  communicates  some 
moral  or  religious  truth,  it  must  communicate  all  the 
truths  of  religion  and  morality.  Nor,  again,  does  it 
follow  that  individuals  must  each  receive  the  same 
access  of  knowledge.  It  is  evidently  as  possible  that 
it  should  be  communicated  in  different  degrees  to  differ- 
ent individuals,  as  that  it  should  be  communicated 
at  all.  For  which  plain  reasons  we  are  still  to  expect, 
what  in  fact  we  find,  that  although  the  judgment  re- 
ceives light  from  a  superhuman  intelligence,  the  degree 
of  that  light  varies  in  individuals ;  and  that  the  sense 
of  obligation  is  connected  with  fewer  subjects,  and 
attended  with  less  accuracy,  in  the  minds  of  some  men 
than  of  others. 

With  respect  to  the  authority  which  properly  belongs 
to  conscience  as  a  director  of  individual  conduct,  it 
appears  manifest,  alike  from  reason  and  from  Scripture, 
that  it  is  great.  Dr.  Furneaux  says,  '  'To  secure  the  favor 
of  God  and  the  rewards  of  true  religion,  we  must  follow 
our  own  consciences  and  judgments  according  to  the  best 
light  we  can  attain."*  And  I  am  especially  disposed 
to  add  the  testimony  of  Sir  William  Temple,  because 
he  recognizes  the  doctrine  which  has  just  been  ad- 
vanced, that  our  judgments  are  enlightened  by  super- 
human agency.  ' '  The  way  to  our  future  happiness 
must  be  left,  at  last,  to  the  impressions  made  upon  every 
man' s  belief  and  conscience  either  by  natural  or  super- 
natural arguments  and  means,  "f-  Accordingly  there 
appears  no  reason  to  doubt  that  some  will  stand  con- 
victed in  the  sight  of  the  Omniscient  Judge,  for  actions 
which  his  moral  law  has  not  forbidden  ;  and  that  some 
may  be  uncondemned  for  actions  which  that  law  does  not 
allow.     The    distinction   here   is  the  same  as  that  to 

*  Essay  on  Toleration,  p  8.         f  Works  :  v.  I.  p  55-  f-  x740. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  Wlljy  OF  GOD.  59 

which  we  have  before  had  occasion  to  allude,  between 
the  desert  of  the  agent  and  the  quality  of  the  act.  Of 
this  distinction  an  illustration  is  contained  in  Isaiah  x. 
It  was  the  Divine  will  that  a  certain  specific  course  of 
action  should  be  pursued  in  punishing  the  Israelites. 
For  the  performance  of  this,  the  king  of  Assyria  was 
employed  : — ' '  I  will  give  him  a  charge  to  take  the  spoil, 
and  to  take  the  prey,  and  to  tread  them  down  like  the 
mire  of  the  streets."  This  charge  the  Assyrian  mon- 
arch fulfilled ;  he  did  the  will  of  God  ;  but  then  his 
intention  was  criminal ;  he  "  meant  not  so:"  and  there- 
fore, when  the  ' '  whole  work  ' '  is  performed,  ' '  I  will 
punish,'"  says  the  Almighty,  "the  fruit  of  the  stout 
heart  of  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  the  glory  of  his  high 
looks." 

But  it  was  said  that  these  principles  respecting  the 
authority  of  conscience  were  recognized  in  Scripture. 
1 '  One  believeth  that  he  may  eat  all  things  :  another 
who  is  weak  eateth  herbs.  One  man  esteemeth  one 
day  above  another :  another  esteemeth  every  day  alike." 
Here,  then,  are  differences,  nay,  contrarieties  of  con- 
scientious judgments.  And  what  are  the  parties  di- 
rected severally  to  do? — "Let  every  man  be  fully 
persuaded  in  his  own  mind  ;"  that  is,  let  the  full  per- 
suasion of  his  own  mind  be  every  man's  rule  of  action. 
The  situation  of  these  parties  was,  that  one  perceived 
the  truth  upon  the  subject,  and  the  other  did  not ;  that 
in  one  the  sense  of  obligation  was  connected  with  an 
accurate,  in  the  other  with  an  inaccurate,  opinion. 
Thus,  again  : — ' '  /  know,  and  am  persuaded  by  the 
Lord  Jesus,  that  there  is  nothing  unclean  of  itself;" 
therefore,  absolutely  speaking,  it  is  lawful  to  eat  all 
things  ;  "but  to  him  that  esteemeth  any  thing  to  be  un- 
clean ,  to  him  it  is  unclean . ' '  The  question  is  not  whether 
his  judgment  was  correct,  but  what  that  judgment  act- 
ually was.     To  the  doubter,  the  uncleanness,  that  is, 


60  THE)   IMMEDIATE   COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

the  sin  of  eating,  was  certain,  though  the  act  was  right. 
Again  :  "  All  things  indeed  are  pure  ;  but  it  is  evil/or 
that  man  who  eateth  with  offence."  And,  again,  as  a 
general  rule  :  "He  that  doubteth  is  condemned  if  he 
eat,  because  he  eateth  not  of  faith  ;  for  whatsoever  is 
not  of  faith  is  sin."* 

One  observation  remains ;  that  although  a  man 
ought  to  make  his  conduct  conform  to  his  conscience, 
yet  he  may  sometimes  justly  be  held  criminal  for  the 
errors  of  his  opinion.  Men  often  judge  amiss  respect- 
ing their  duties  in  consequence  of  their  own  faults : 
some  take  little  pains  to  ascertain  the  truth  ;  some  vol- 
untarily exclude  knowledge ;  and  most  men  would 
possess  more  accurate  perceptions  of  the  moral  law  if 
they  sufficiently  endeavored  to  obtain  them.  And, 
therefore,  although  a  man  may  not  be  punished  for  a 
given  act  which  he  ignorantly  supposes  to  be  lawful, 
he  may  be  punished  for  that  ignorance  in  which  his 
supposition  orginates.  Which  consideration  may  per- 
haps account  for  the  expression,  that  he  who  ignor- 
antly failed  to  do  his  master's  will  "  shall  be  beaten 
with  few  stripes. ' '  There  is  a  degree  of  wickedness, 
to  the  agents  of  which  God  at  length  ' '  sends  strong 
delusion"  that  they  may  "believe  a  lie."  In  this 
state  of  strong  delusion  they  perhaps  may,  without 
violating  any  sense  of  obligation,  do  many  wicked  act- 
ions. The  principles  which  have  been  here  delivered 
would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  tfie  punishment  which 
awaits  such  men  will  have  respect  rather  to  that  in- 
tensity of  wickedness  of  which  delusion  was  the  conse- 
quence, than  to  those  particular  acts  which  they  might 
ignorantly  commit  under  the  influence  of  the  delusion 
itself.  This  observation  is  offered  to  the  reader  be- 
cause some  writers  have  obscured  the  present  subject 
by  speculating  upon  the  moral  deserts  of  those  desper- 
*  Rom.  xiv. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WII.I,  OF  GOD.  6l 

ately  bad  men,  who  occasionally  have  committed  atro- 
cious acts  under  the  notion  that  they  were  doing  right. 
Let  us  then,  when  we  direct  our  serious  enquiry  to 
the  immediate  communication  of  the  Divine  will,  care- 
fully distinguish  that  communication  from  the  dictates 
of  the  conscience.  They  are  separate  and  distinct  con- 
siderations. It  is  obvious  that  those  positions  which 
some  persons  advance  ; — "  Conscience  is  our  infallible 
guide, — "Conscience  is  the  voice  of  the"  Deity,"  etc., 
are  wholly  improper  and  inadmissible.  The  term  may 
indeed  have  been  employed  syno?iymously  for  the  voice 
of  God  :  but  this  ought  never  to  be  done.  It  is  to  in- 
duce confusion  of  language  respecting  a  subject  which 
ought  always  to  be  distinctly  exhibited ;  and  the  ne- 
cessity for.  avoiding  ambiguity  is  so  much  the  greater, 
as  the  consequences  of  that  ambiguity  are  more  serious: 
it  is  obvious  that,  on  these  subjects,  inaccuracy  of 
language  gives  rise  to  serious  error  of  opinion. 

REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS  RESPECTING  A  MORAL  SENSE. 

The  purpose  for  which  this  brief  review  is  offered  to 
the  reader,  is  explained  in  very  few  words.  It  is  to 
enquire,  by  a  reference  to  the  written  opinions  of  many 
persons,  whether  they  do  not  agree  in  asserting  that 
our  Creator  communicates  some  portions  of  his  moral 
law  immediately  to  the  human  mind.  These  opinions 
are  frequently  delivered,  as  the  reader  will  presently 
discover,  in  great  ambiguity  of  language ;  but  in  the 
midst  of  this  ambiguity  there  appears  to  exist  one  per- 
vading truth — a  truth  in  testimony  to  which  these 
opinions  are  not  the  less  satisfactory  because,  in  some 
instances,  the  testimony  is  undesigned.  The  reader  is 
requested  to  observe,  as  he  passes  on,  whether  many  of 
the  difficulties  which  enquirers  have  found  or  made, 
are  not  solved  by  the  supposition  of  a  Divine  communi- 


62  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

cation,  and  whether  they  can  be  solved  by  any  other. 

■ '  The  Author  of  nature  has  much  better  furnished 
us  for  a  virtuous  conduct  than  our  moralists  seem  to 
imagine,  by  almost  as  quick  and  powerful  instructions 
as  we  have  for  the  preservation  of  our  bodies."* 

Bishop  Butler  says  again  of  conscience,  ' '  To  pre- 
side and  govern,  from  the  very  economy  and  constitu- 
tion of  man,  belongs  to  it.  This  faculty  was  placed 
within  to  be  our  proper  governor,  to  direct  and  regu- 
late all  undue  principles,  passions,  and  motives  of 
action. — It  carries  its  own  authority  with  it,  that  it  is 
our  natural  guide,  the  guide  assigned  us  by  the  Author 
of  our  nature."  Would  it  have  been  unreasonable  to 
conclude,  that  there  was  at  least  some  connection  be- 
tween this  reprover  of  ' '  all  undue  principles,  passions, 
and  motives,"  and  that  law  of  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment speaks,  ' '  All  things  that  are  reproved  are  made 
manifest  by  the  light  ?"f 

Blair  says,  ' '  Conscience  is  felt  to  act  as  the  delegate 
of  an  invisible  Ruler  ;" — "  Conscience  is  the  guide,  or 
the  enlightening  or  directing  principle  of  our  con- 
duct."! In  this  instance,  as  in  many  others,  consci- 
ence appears  to  be  used  in  an  indeterminate  sense. 
Conscience  is  not  an  enlightening  principle,  but  a  prin- 
ciple which  is  enlightened.  It  is  not  a  legislator,  but 
a  repository  of  statutes.  Yet  the  reader  will  perceive 
the  fundamental  truth,  that  man  is  in  fact  illuminated, 
and  illuminated  by  an  invisible  Ruler.  In  the  thir- 
teenth sermon  there  is  an  expression  more  distinct  : 
' '  God  has  invested  conscience  with  authority  to  pro- 
mulgate his  laws."  It  is  obvious  that  the  Divine 
Being  must  have  communicated  his  laws,  before  they 
could  have  been  promulgated  by  conscience.  In  accord- 
ance with  which   the   author  says   in   another   place 

*  Dr.  Hutcheson:  Enquiry  concerning  Moral  Good  and  Evil, 
f  Eph.  v.  15.  %  Sermons. 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THE  WIUv  OF  GOD.  63 

"  Under  the  tuition  of  God  let  us  put  ourselves." — "A 
Heavenly  Conductor  vouchsafes  his  aid." — "  Divine 
light  descends  to  guide  our  steps."* 

Lord  Bacon  says,  ■ '  The  light  of  nature  not  only  shines 
upon  the  human  mind  through  the  medium  of  a  rational 
faculty,  but  by  an  internal  instinct  according  to  the  law 
of  conscience,  which  is  a  sparkle  of  the  purity  of 
man's  first  estate." 

1 '  The  first  principles  of  morals  are  the  immediate 
dictates  of  the  moral  faculty." — "By  the  moral  faculty, 
or  conscience,  solely,  we  have  the  original  conception 
of  right  and  wrong. " — "It  is  evident  that  this  prin- 
ciple has,  from  its  nature,  authority  to  direct  and  de- 
termine with  regard  to  our  conduct  :  to  judge,  to 
acquit  or  condemn,  and  even  to  punish  ;  an  authority 
which  belongs  to  no  other  principle  of  the  human  mind." 
' '  The  Supreme  Being  has  given  us  this  light  within  to 
direct  our  moral  conduct." — "It  is  the  candle  of  the 
Lord,  set  up  within  us  to  guide  our  steps. "f  This  is 
almost  the  language  of  Christianity,  ■ '  That  was  the 
true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into 
the  world. "J  I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  the  author 
of  the  essays  speaks  exclusively  of  the  same  Divine 
guidance  as  the  apostle ;  but  surely,  if  conscience 
operates  as  such  a  "  light  within,"  as  "the  candle  of 
the  Lord,"  it  can  require  no  reasoning  to  convince  us 
that  it  is  illuminated  from  heaven.  The  indistinctness 
of  notions  which  such  language  exhibits,  appears  to 
arise  from  inaccurate  views  of  the  nature  of  conscience. 
The  writer  does  not  distinguish  between  the  recipient 
and  the  source  ;  between  the  enlightened  principle  and 
the  enlightening  beam.     The  apostle  speaks  only  of  the 

*  Sermon  7. 

t  Dr.  Reid  :  Essay  on  the  Powers  of  the  Human  Mind,  Essay 
3  c.  8.  &c. 
%  John  i.  9. 


64  THE   IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

last ;    the  uninspired  enquirer  speaks,  without  discrim- 
ination, of  both  ; — and  hence  the  ambiguity. 

1  'And  this  law  is  that  innate  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  of  virtue  and  vice,  which  every  man  carries  in 
his  own  bosom." — "These  impressions,  operating  on 
the  mind  of  man,  bespeak  a  law  written  on  his  heart." 
— "This  secret  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  for  wise 
purposes  so  deeply  implanted  by  our  Creator  on  the 
human  mind,  has  the  nature,  force,  and  effect  of  a 
law."* 

IyOcke  :  "  The  Divine  law,  that  law  which  God  has 
set  to  the  actions  of  men,  whether  promulgated  to  them 
by  the  light  of  nature  or  the  voice  of  revelation,  is  the 
measure  of  sin  and  duty.  That  God  has  given  a  rule 
whereby  men  should  govern  themselves,  I  think  there 
is  nobody  so  brutish  as  to  deny."f  The  reader  should 
remark,  that  revelation  and  "  the  light  of  nature  "  are 
here  represented  as  being  jointly  and  equally  the  law 
of  God. 

Adam  Smith  :  ' '  It  is  altogether  absurd  and  unintel- 
ligible, to  suppose  that  the  first  perceptions  of  right 
and  wrong  can  be  derived  from  reason.  These  first 
perceptions  cannot  be  the  object  of  reason,  but  of  im- 
mediate sense  and  feeling." — "Though  man  has  been 
rendered  the  immediate  judge  of  mankind,  an  appeal 
lies  from  his  sentence  to  a  much  higher  tribunal,  to 
the  tribunal  of  their  own  consciences,  to  that  of  the 
man  within  the  breast,  the  great  judge  and  arbiter  of 
their  conduct."  In  some  cases  in  which  censure  is 
violently  poured  upon  us,  the  judgments  of  the  man 
within,  are,  however,  much  shaken  in  the  steadiness 
and  firmness  of  their  decision.  "  In  such  cases,  this 
demigod  within  the  breast  appears,  like  the  demigods 
of  the  poets,  though  partly  of  immortal,  yet,  partly, 

*  Dr.  Shepherd's  Discourse  on  Future  Existence. 

f  Essay,  b.  2.  c.  28. 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  65 

too,  of  mortal  extraction."  Our  moral  faculties  "were 
set  up  within  us  to  be  the  supreme  arbiters  of  all  our 
actions." •  "The  rules  which  they  prescribe  are  to  be 
regarded  as  the  commands  and  laws  of  the  Deity,  pro- 
mulgated by  those  vicegerents  which  he  has  thus  set 
up  within  us."  "Some  questions  must  be  left  alto- 
gether to  the  decision  of  the  man  within  the  breast." 
And  let  the  reader  mark  what  follows  :  "  If  we  listen 
with  diligent  and  reverential  attention  to  what  he  sug- 
gests to  us,  his  voice  will  never  deceive  us.  We  shall 
stand  in  no  need  of  casuistic  rules  to  direct  our  con- 
duct." How  wonderful  that  such  a  man,  who  uses 
almost  the  language  of  Scripture,  appears  not  even  to 
have  thought  of  the  truth — "  the  Anointing  which  3^e 
have  received  of  him  abideth  in  you,  and  ye  need  not 
that  any  man  teach  you!"  for  he  does  not  appear  to 
have  thought  of  it.  He  intimates  that  this  vicegerent 
of  God,  this  undeceiving  teacher  to  whom  we  are  to 
listen  with  reverential  attention,  is  some  ' '  contrivance 
or  mechanism  within';"  and  says  that  to  examine  what 
contrivance  or  mechanism  it  is,  "  is  a  mere  matter  of 
philosophical  curiosity . "  * 

A  matter  of  philosophical  curiosity,  Dr.  Paley  seems 
to  have  thought  a  kindred  enquiry  to  be.  He  discus- 
ses the  question,  whether  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
moral  sense  or  not ;  and  thus  sums  up  the  argument  : 
1 '  Upon  the  whole  it  seems  to  me,  either  that  there 
exist  no  such  instincts  as  compose  what  is  called  the 
moral  sense,  or  that  they  are  not  now  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  prejudices  and  habits." — "  This 
celebrated  question  therefore  becomes,  in  our  system,  a 
question  of  pure  curiosity  ;  and  as  such,  we  dismiss  it 
to  the  determination  of  those  who  are  more  inquisitive 
than  we  are  concerned  to  be,  about  the  natural  history 
and  constitution  of  the  human  species,  "f     But  in  an- 

*  Theory  of  Mor.  Sent.  |  Mor-  and  Pol.  Phil,  b  1,  c.  5. 


66  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

other  work,  a  work  in  which  he  did  not  bind  himself 
to  the  support  of  a  philosophical  system,  he  holds  other 
language  :  '■*■  Conscience,  our  own  conscience;  is  to  be 
our  guide  in  all  things. "  ' '  It  is  through  the  whisper- 
ings of  conscience  that  the  Spirit  speaks.  If  men  are 
wilfully  deaf  to  their  consciences  they  cannot  hear  the 
Spirit.  If,  hearing,  if  being  compelled  to  hear  the 
remonstrances  of  conscience,  they  nevertheless  decide 
and  resolve  and  determine  to  go  against  them,  then 
they  grieve,  then  they  defy,  then  they  do  despite  to, 
the  Spirit  of  God . "  ' '  Is  it  superstition  ?  Is  it  not 
on  the  contrary  a  just  and  reasonable  piety  to  implore 
of  God  the  guidance  of  his  Holy  Spirit,  when  we  have 
any  thing  of  great  importance  to  decide  upon  or  under- 
take?"—  "It  being  confessed  that  we  cannot  ordinarily 
distinguish,  at  the  time,  the  suggestions  of  the  Spirit 
from  the  operations  of  our  minds,  it  may  be  asked, 
How  are  we  to  listen  to  them  ?  The  answer  is,  by  at- 
tending, universally,  to  the  admonitions  within  us."* 
The  tendency  of  these  quotations  to  enforce  our  gen- 
eral argument,  is  plain  and  powerful. 

"  And  I  will  place  within  them  as  a  guide, 
My  umpire,  Conscience  ;  whom  if  they  will  hear 
Light  after  light,  well  used,  they  shall  attain,  "f 

This  is  the  language  of  Milton  ;  and  we  have  thus 
his  testimony  added  to  the  many,  that  God  has  placed 
within  us  an  umpire  which  shall  pronounce,  His  own 
laws  in  our  hearts.  Thus  in  his  "Christian  Doctrine" 
more  clearly  ;  ' '  They  can  lay  claim  to  nothing  more 
than  human  powers,  assisted  by  that  spiritual  illumina- 
tion which  is  common  to  all. ' '  % 

Judge  Hale  :  ' '  Any  man  that  sincerely  and  truly 
fears  Almighty  God,  and  calls  and  relies  upon  him  for 
his  direction,  has  it  as  really  as  a  son  has  the  counsel 
and  direction  of  his  father  ;  and  though  the  voice  be 

*  Sermons.  f  Par.  Lost,  iii.  194.  %  P.  81. 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THF,  WIU,  OF  GOD.  67 

not  audible  nor  discernible  by  sense,  yet  is  equally 
as  real  as  if  a  man  heard  a  voice  saying,  '  This  is  the 
way,  walk  in  it.'  " 

The  sentiments  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  etc., 
should  not  be  forgotten,  and  the  rather  because  their 
language  is  frequently  much  more  distinct  and  satis- 
factory than  that  of  the  refined  enquirers  of  the  present 
day. 

Marcus  Antoninus  :  ' '  He  who  is  well  disposed  will 
do  every  thing  dictated  by  the  divinity — a  particle  or 
portion  of  Himself %  which  God  has  given  to  each  as  a 
guide  and  a  leader."* — Aristotle  :  "  The  mind  of  man 
hath  a  near  affinity  to  God  :  there  is  a  divine  ruler  in 
him" — Plutarch:  "The  light  of  truth  is  a  law,  not 
written  in  tables  or  books  but  dwelling  in  the  mind, 
always  as  a  living  rule  which  never  permits  the  soul  to 
be  destitute  of  an  interior  guide." — Hieron  says  that 
the  universal  light,  shining  in  the  conscience,  is  "a 
domestic  God,  a  God  within  the  hearts  and  souls  of 
men." — Epictetus  :  "God  has  assigned  to  each  man 
a  director,  his  own  good  genius,  a  guardian  whose  vig- 
ilance no  slumbers  interrupt,  and  whom  no  false  rea- 
sonings can  deceive.  So  that  when  you  have  shut 
your  door,  say  not  that  you  are  alone,  for  your  God 
is  within. — What  need  have  you  of  outward  light  to 
discover  what  is  done,  or  to  light  to  good  actions,  who 
have  God  or  that  genius  or  divine  principle  for  your 
light  ?"f  Such  citations  might  be  greatly  multiplied  ; 
but  one  more  must  suffice.  Seneca  says,  ' '  We  find 
felicity — in  a  pure  and  untainted  mind,  which  if  it  were 
not  holy  were  not  fit  to  entertain  the  Deity. ' '  How  like 
the  words  of  an  apostle  ! — "  If  any  man  defile  the  tem- 
ple of  God,  him  shall  God  destroy  ;  for  the  temple  of 
God  is  holy,  which  temple  ye  are. "J  The  philosopher 
again  :  "  There  is  a  holy  spirit  in  us  ;"§  and  again  the 
*  Lib.  5,  Sect.  27.  t  Lib.  1,  c.  14. 

\  1  Cor.  iii.  17.  \  De  Benef.  c.  17,  etc. 


68  THE   IMMEDIATE   COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

apostle  :   ' '  Know  ye  not  that ' '   the   ' '  Spirit  of   God 
dwelleth  in  you  ?'  '* 

Now  respecting  the  various  opinions  which  have  been 
laid  before  the  reader,  there  is  one  observation  that  will 
generally  apply — that  they  unite  in  assigning  certain 
important  attributes  or  operations  to  some  principle  or 
power  existent  in  the  human  mind.  They  affirm  that 
this  principle  or  power  possessess  wisdom  to  direct  us 
aright — that  its  directions  are  given  instantaneously  as 
the  individual  needs  them — that  it  is  inseparably  atten- 
ded with  unquestionable  authority  to  command.  That 
such  a  principle  or  power  does,  therefore,  actually  exist, 
can  need  little  further  proof  ;  for  a  concurrent  judgment 
upon  a  question  of  personal  experience  cannot  surely  be 
incorrect.  To  say  that  individuals  express  their  notions 
of  this  principle  or  power  by  various  phraseology,  that 
they  attribute  to  it  different  degrees  of  superhuman 
intelligence,  or  that  they  refer  for  its  origin  to  contra- 
dictory causes,  does  not  affect  the  general  argument. 
The  great  point  for  our  attention,  is,  not  the  designation 
or  the  supposed  origin  of  this  guide,  but  the  attributes; 
and  these  attributes  appear  to  be  divine. 

THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  OF  THE 
WILX  OF  GOD. 

I.  That  every  reasonable  human  being  is  a  moral 
agent — that  is,  that  every  such  human  being  is  respon- 
sible to  God,  no  one  perhaps  denies.  There  can  be  no 
responsibility  where  there  is  no  knowledge  :  ' '  Where 
there  is  no  law  there  is  no  transgression."  So  then 
every  human  being  possessess,  or  is  furnished  with, 
moral  knowledge  and  a  moral  law.  "  If  we  admit  that 
mankind,  without  an  outward  revelation,  are  neverthe- 
less sinners,  we  must  also  admit  that  mankind,  without 
*  i  Cor.  iii.  16. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WII.I,  OF  GOD.  69 

such  a  revelation,  are  nevertheless  in  possession  of  the 
law  of  God."* 

Whence  then  do  they  obtain  it  ? — a  question  to  which 
but  one  answer  can  be  given  ;  from  the  Creator  him- 
self. It  appears  therefore  to  be  almost  demonstratively 
shown,  that  God  does  communicate  his  will  immediately 
to  the  minds  of  those  who  have  no  access  to  the  external 
expression  of  it.  It  is  always  to  be  rememberedt  hat,  as 
the  majority  of  mankind  do  not  possess  the  written 
communication  of  the  will  of  God,  the  question,  as  it 
respects  them,  is  between  an  Immediate  communication 
and  none;  between  such  a  communication,  and  the  denial 
of  their  responsibility  in  a  future  state  ;  between  such 
a  communication,  and  the  reducing  them  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  beasts  that  perish. 

II.  No  one  perhaps  will  imagine  that  this  argument 
is  confined  to  countries  which  the  external  light  of 
Christianity  has  not  reached.  ■ '  Whoever  expects  to 
find  in  the  Scriptures  a  specific  direction  for  every  morat 
doubt  that  arises,  looks  for  more  than  he  will  mees 
with  ;"f  so  that  even  in  Christian  countries  there  exist, 
some  portion  of  that  necessity  for  other  guidance, 
which  has  been  seen  to  exist  in  respect  to  pagans. 
Thus  Adam  Smith  says  that  there  are  some  ques- 
tions which  it  ' '  is  perhaps  altogether  impossible  to  de- 
termine by  any  precise  rules,"  and  that  they  "must  be 
left  altogether  to  the  decision  of  the  man  within  the 
breast." — But,  indeed,  when  we  speak  of  living  in 
Christian  countries,  and  of  having  access  to  the  external 
revelation,  we  are  likely  to  mislead  ourselves  with  re- 
spect to  the  actual  condition  of  ' '  Christian  ' '  people. 
Persons  talk  of  possessing  the  Bible,  as  if  every  one 
who  lived  in  a  Protestant  country  had  a  Bible  in  his 
pocket  and  could  read  it.     But   there   are   thousands, 

*  Gurney  :  Essays  on  Christianity,  p.  516. 
f  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  1,  c.  4. 


70  THE  IMMEDIATE   COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

perhaps  millions,  in  Christian  and  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, who  know  very  little  of  what  Christianity  enjoins. 
They  probably  do  not  possess  the  Scriptures,  or  if  they 
do,  probably  cannot  read  them.  What  they  do  know 
they  learn  from  others — from  others  who  may  be  little 
solicitous  to  teach  them,  or  to  teach  them  aright.  Such 
persons  therefore  are,  to  a  considerable  extent,  practi- 
cally in  the  same  situation  as  those  who  have  not  heard 
of  Christianity,  and  there  is  therefore  to  them  a  corre- 
sponding need  of  a  direct  communication  of  knowledge 
from  heaven.  But  if  we  see  the  need  of  such  knowledge 
extending  itself  thus  far,  who  will  call  in  question  the 
doctrine,  that  it  is  imparted  to  the  whole  human  race  ? 

These  are  offered  as  considerations  involving  an  an- 
tecedent probability  of  the  truth  of  our  argument. 
The  reader  is  not  required  to  give  his  assent  to  it  as  to  a 
dogma  of  which  he  can  discover  neither  the  reason  nor 
the  object.  Here  is  probability  very  strong  ;  here  is 
usefulness  very  manifest,  and  very  great : — so  that  the 
mind  may  reasonably  be  open  to  the  reception  of  evi- 
dence, whatever  Truth  that  evidence  shall  establish. 

If  the  written  revelation  were  silent  respecting  the 
immediate  communication  of  the  Divine  will,  that  sil- 
ence might  perhaps  rightly  be  regarded  as  conclusive 
evidence  that  it  is  not  conveyed  ;  because  it  is  so 
intimately  connected  with  the  purposes  to  which  that 
revelation  is  directed,  that  scarcely  any  other  explana- 
tion could  be  given  of  its  silence  than  that  the  com- 
munication did  not  exist.  That  the  Scriptures  declare 
that  God  has  communicated  light  and  knowledge  to 
some  men  by  the  immediate  exertion  of  his  own  agency, 
admits  not  of  dispute :  but  this  it  is  obvious  is  not 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  ;  and  it  is  in  the  belief  that 
they  declare  that  God  imparts  some  knowledge  to  all 
men,  that  we  thus  appeal  to  their  testimony. 

Now  here  the  reader  should  especially  observe,  that 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  7 1 

where  the  Christian  Scriptures  speak  of  the  existence 
and  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  on-  the  mind,  they 
commonly  speak  of  its  higher  operations ;  not  of  its 
office  as  a  moral  guide,  but  as  a  purifier,  and  sanctifier, 
and  comforter  of  the  soul.  They  speak  of  it  in  refer- 
ence to  its  sacred  and  awful  operations  in  connection 
with  human  salvation  :  and  thus  it  happens  that  very 
many  citations  which,  if  we  were  writing  an  essay  on 
religion,  would  be  perfectly  appropriate,  do  not  possess 
that  distinct  and  palpable  application  to  an  argument, 
which  goes  no  further  than  to  affirm  that  it  is  a  moral 
guide.  And  yet  it  may  most  reasonably  be  remarked, 
that  if  it  has  pleased  the  Universal  Parent  thus,  and 
for  these  awful  purposes,  to  visit  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  obedient  to  his  power — he  will  not  suffer  them 
to  be  destitute  of  a  moral  guidance.  The  less  must  be 
supposed  to  be  involved  in  the  greater. 

Our  argument  does  not  respect  the  degrees  of  illumi- 
nation which  may  be  possessed,  respectively,  by  indi- 
viduals,* or  in  different  ages  of  the  world.  There 
were  motives,  easily  conceived,  for  imparting  a  greater 
degree  of  light  and  of  power  at  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity than  in  the  present  day  ;  accordingly  there  are 
many  expressions  in  the  New  Testament  which  speak  of 
high  degrees  of  light  and  power,  and  which,  however  they 
may  affirm  the  general  existence  of  a  Divine  guidance, 
are  not  descriptive  of  the  general  nor  of  the  present 
condition  of  mankind.  Nevertheless  if  the  records  of 
Christianity,  in  describing  these  greater  "gifts,"  inform 

*  I  am  disposed  to  offer  a  simple  testimony  to  what  I  believe 
to  be  a  truth  ;  that  even  in  the  present  day,  the  Divine  illumin- 
ation and  power  is  sometimes  imparted  to  individuals  in  a  degree 
much  greater  than  is  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  mere  moral 
direction  ;  that  on  subjects  connected  with  their  own  personal 
condition  or  that  of  others,  light  is  sometimes  imparted  in  greater 
brightness  and  splendor  than  is  ordinarily  enjoyed  by  mankind, 
or  than  is  necessary  for  our  ordinary  direction  in  life. 


72  THE    IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

us  that  a  gift,  similar  in  its  nature  but  without  specifi- 
cation of  its  amount,  is  imparted  to  all  men,  it  is  suf- 
ficient. Although  it  is  one  thing  for  the  Creator  to 
impart  a  general  capacity  to  distinguish  right  from 
wrong,  and  another  to  impart  miraculous  power  ;  one 
thing  to  inform  his  accountable  creature  that  lying  is 
evil,  and  another  to  enable  him  to  cure  a  leprosy  ;  yet 
this  affords  no  reason  to  deny  that  the  nature  of  the 
gift  is  not  the  same,  or  that  both  are  not  Divine. 
' '  The  degree  of  light  may  vary  according  as  one  man 
has  a  greater  measure  than  another.  But  the  light  of 
an  apostle  is  not  one  thing  and  the  light  of  the  heathen 
another  thing,  distinct  in  principle.  They  differ  only  in 
degree  of  power,  distinctness,  and  splendor  of  mani- 
festation. ' '  * 

So  early  as  Gen.  vi.  there  is  a  distinct  declaration  of 
the  moral  operation  of  the  Deity  on  the  human  mind  ; 
not  upon  the  pious  and  the  good,  but  upon  those 
who  were  desperately  wicked,  so  that  even  "  every 
imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  their  heart  was  only 
evil  continually." — "My  spirit  shall  not  always  strive 
with  man."  Upon  this  passage  a  good  and  intelligent 
man  writes  thus;  "Surely,  if  His  spirit  has  striven 
with  them  until  that  time,  until  they  were  so  desper- 
ately wicked,  and  wholly  corrupted,  that  not  only  some, 
but  every  imagination  of  their  hearts  was  evil,  yes, 
only  evil,  and  that  continually,  we  may  well  believe  the 
express  Scripture  assertion  that  'a  manifestation  of  the 
Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal.'  "t 

Respecting  some  of  the  prophetical  passages  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  it  may  be  observed  that  there  ap- 

*  Hancock  :  Essay  on  Instinct,  etc.,  p.  2,  c.  7,  s.  1.  I  take 
this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  the  obligations  I  am  under 
to  this  work,  for  many  of  the  "  Opinions"  which  are  cited  in 
the  last  section. 

f  Job  Scott's  Journal,  c.  1. 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  73 

pears  a  want  of  complete  adaptation  to  the  immediate 
purpose  of  our  argument,  because  they  speak  of  that, 
prospectively,  which  our  argument  assumes  to  be  true 
retrospectively  also.  "After  those  days,  saith  the  Lord, 
I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and  write  it  in 
their  hearts;"*  from  which  the  reader  may  possibly 
conclude  that  before  those  days  no  such  internal  law 
was  imparted.  Yet  the  preceding  paragraph  might 
assure  him  of  the  contrary,  and  that  the  prophet  indi- 
cated an  increase  rather  than  a  commencement  of 
internal  guidance.  Under  any  supposition  it  does  not 
affect  the  argument  as  it  respects  the  present  condition 
of  the  human  race ;  for  the  prophecy  is  twice  quoted 
in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  is  expressly  stated  to 
be  fulfilled.  Once  the  prophecy  is  quoted  almost  at 
length,  and  in  the  other  instance  the  important  clause 
is  retained,  "  I  will  put  my  laws  into  their  hearts,  and 
in  their  minds  will  I  write  them."f 

"And  all  thy  children,"  says  Isaiah,  "shall  be 
taught  of  the  I^ord. ' '  Christ  himself  quotes  this  pass- 
age in  illustrating  the  nature  of  his  own  religion  :  "  It 
is  written  in  the  prophets,  And  they  shall  be  all  taught 
of  God.  "| 

1 '  Thine  eyes  shall  see  thy  teachers  :  and  thine  ears 
shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying,  This  is  the  way, 
walk  ye  in  it  ;  when  ye  turn  to  the  right  hand,  and 
when  ye  turn  to  the  left."§ 

The  Christian  Scriptures,  if  they  be  not  more  ex- 
plicit, are  more  abundant  in  their  testimony.  Paul 
addresses  the  '  'foolish  Galaiians. ' '  The  reader  should 
observe  their  character  ;  for  some  Christians  who  ack- 
nowledge the  Divine  influence  on  the  minds  of  emi- 
nently good  men,  are  disposed  to  question  it  in  refer- 
ence to  others.     These  foolish  Galatians  had  turned 

*  Jer.  xxxi.  33.  f  Heb.  viii.  10  ;  and  x.  16. 

\  John  vi.  45.  \  Isa.  xxx.  20,  21. 


74  The  immediate  communication  [essay  i. 

again  to  "weak  and  beggarly  elements,"  and  their 
dignified  instructor  was  afraid  of  them,  lest  he  had 
bestowed  upon  them  labor  in  vain.  Nevertheless,  to 
them  he  makes  the  solemn  declaration,  '  ■  God  hath 
sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  his  Son  into  your  hearts ' '  * 

John  writes  a  General  Epistle,  an  epistle  which  was 
addressed,  of  course,  to  a  great  variety  of  characters, 
of  whom  some,  it  is  probable,  possessed  little  more  of 
the  new  religion  than  the  name.  The  apostle  writes — 
' '  Hereby  we  know  that  he  abideth  in  us  by  the  Spirit 
which  he  hath  given  us."f 

The  solemn  declarations  which  follow  are  addressed 
to  large  numbers  of  recent  converts,  of  converts  whom 
the  writer  had  been  severely  reproving  for  improprie- 
ties of  conduct,  for  unchristian  contentions,  and  even 
for  the  greater  faults  :  "Ye  are  the  temple  of  the  liv- 
ing God,  as  God  hath  said,  I  will  dwell  in  them  and 
walk  in  them." — "  What,  know  ye  not  that  your  body 
is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  in  you?"  % 
"  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ?  If  any  man  defile 
the  temple  of  God,  him  shall  God  destroy  ;  for  the 
temple  of  God  is  holy,  which  temple  ye  are."§ 

And  with  respect  to  the  moral  operations  of  this 
sacred  power  : — "  As  touching  brotherly  love,  ye  need 
not  that  I  write  unto  you  :  for  ye  yourselves  are  taught 
of  God  to  love  one  another  ;"||  that  is,  taught  a  duty 
of  morality. 

Thus  also  : — "The  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  sal- 
vation hath  appeared  to  all  men,  teaching  us  that, 
denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we  should  live 
soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  present  world. '  '^f 
or  in  other  words,  teaching  all  men  moral  laws — laws 

*  Gal.  iv.  6.  f  i  John  iii.  24. 

%  1  Cor.  vi.  19.  \  1  Cor.  iii.  16. 

||  1  Thess.  iv.  9.  \  Tit.  ii.  n,  12. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  75 

both  mandatory  and  prohibitory,  teaching  both  what 
to  do  and  what  to  avoid. 

And  very  distinctly: — ''The  manifestation  of  the 
Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal."*  A 
light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  "f  "lam  the  Light  of 
the  world. "J  "  The  true  light  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  "§ 

"  When  the  Gentiles,  which  have  not  the  law,  do  by 
nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law,  these  having 
not  the  law  are  a  law  unto  themselves,  which  show  the 
work  of  the  law  written  in  their  hearts." || — written, 
it  may  be  asked  by  whom  but  by  that  Being  who  said, 
'  f  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it 
in  their  hearts  ?"^[ 

To  such  evidence  from  the  written  revelation,  I  know 
of  no  other  objection  which  can  be  urged  than  the  sup- 
position that  this  Divine  instruction,  though  existing 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  does  not  exist  now.  To 
which  it  appears  sufficient  to  reply,  that  it  existed  not 
only  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  but  before  the  period 
of  the  Deluge  ;  and  that  the  terms  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tures speak  of  it  are  incompatible  with  the  supposition 
of  a  temporary  duration  :  "all  taught  of  God:"  "in 
you  all  .•"  ' '  hath  appeared  unto  all  men  : "  ' '  given  to 
every  man  :"  "every  man  that  cometh  i?ito  the  world." 
Besides,  there  is  not  the  most  remote  indication  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures  that  this  instruction  would  not  be 
perpetual ;  and  their  silence  on  such  a  subject,  a  sub- 
ject involving  the  most  sacred  privileges  of  our  race, 
must  surely  be  regarded  as  positive  evidence  that  this 
instruction  would  be  accorded  to  us  for  ever. 


How  clear  soever  appears  to  be  the  evidence  of   rea- 
son ,that  man,  being  universally  a  moral  and  accountable 

*  1  Cor.  xii.  7.  f  Luke  ii.  32.  %  John  viii.  12. 

§  John  i.  9.  ||  Rom.  ii.  14.  fl  Jer.  xxxi.  33. 


76  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

agent,  must  be  possessed,  universally,  of  a  moral  law  ; 
and  how  distinct  soever  the  testimony  of  revelation, 
that  he  does  universally  possess  it — objections  are  still 
urged  against  its  existence. 

Of  these,  perhaps  the  most  popular  are  those  which 
are  founded  upon  the  varying  dictates  of  the  "  Con- 
science." If  the  view  which  we  have  taken  of  the 
nature  and  operations  of  the  conscience  be  just,  these 
objections  will  have  little  weight.  That  the  dictates  of 
the  conscience  should  vary  in  individuals  respectively, 
is  precisely  what,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
is  to  be  expected  ;  but  this  variation  does  not  impeach 
the  existence  of  that  purer  ray  which,  whether  in  less 
or  greater  brightness,  irradiates  the  heart  of  man. 

I  am,  however,  disposed  here  to  notice  the  objec- 
tions* that  may  be  founded  upon  national  derelictions 
of  portions  of  the  moral  law.  ' '  There  is, ' '  says  Locke, 
\ '  scarce  that  principle  of  morality  to  be  named,  or  rule 
of  virtue  to  be  thought  on,  which  is  not  somewhere  or 
other  slighted  and  condemned  by  the.  general  fashion 
of  whole  societies  of  men,  governed  by  practical  opin- 
ions and  rules  of  living  quite  opposite  to  others. " — 
And  Paley  :  "  There  is  scarcely  a  single  vice  which,  in 
some  age  or  country  of  the  world,  has  not  been  count- 
enanced by  public  opinion :  in  one  country  it  is 
esteemed  an  office  of  piety  in  children  to  sustain  their 
aged  parents,  in  another  to  dispatch  them  out  of  the 
way  :  suicide  in  one  age  of  the  world  has  been  heroism, 
in  another  felony  ;  theft  which  is  punished  by  most 
laws,  by  the  laws  of  Sparta  was  not  unfrequently  re- 
warded :  you  shall  hear  duelling  alternately  reprobated 
and  applauded  according  to  the  sex,  age,  or  station  of 
the  person  you  converse  with  :  the  forgiveness  of  injur- 
ies and  insults  is  accounted  by  one  sort  of  people  mag- 
nanimity, by  another,  meanness,  "f 

*  Not  urged  specifically,  perhaps,  against  the  Divine  guid- 
ance ;  but  they  will  equally  afford  an  illustration  of  the  truth. 

t  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  1.  c.  5. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WIUU  OF  GOD.  77 

Upon  all  which  I  observe,  that  to  whatever  purpose 
these  reasonings  are  directed,  they  are  defective  in  an 
essential  point.  They  show  us  indeed  what  the  exter- 
nal actions  of  men  have  been,  but  give  no  proof  that 
these  actions  were  conformable  with  the  secret  internal 
judgment  :  and  this  last  is  the  only  important  point. 
That  a  rule  of  virtue  is  l  '  slighted  and  condemned  by 
the  general  fashion''  is  no  sort  of  evidence  that  those 
who  joined  in  this  general  fashion  did  not  still  know 
that  it  was  a  rule  of  virtue.  There  are  many  duties 
which,  in  the  present  day,  are  slighted  by  the  general 
fashion,  and  yet  no  man  will  stand  up  and  say  that 
they  are  not  duties.  ' '  There  is  scarcely  a  single  vice 
which  has  not  been  countenanced  by  public  opinion  ; ' ' 
but  where  is  the  proof  that  it  has  been  apppoved  by 
private  and  secret  judgment?  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  difference  between  those  sentiments  which  men  seem 
to  entertain  respecting  their  duties  when  they  give  ex- 
pression to  "  public  opinion,"  and  when  they  rest 
their  heads  on  their  pillows  in  calm  reflection.  ' '  Sui- 
cide in  one  age  of  the  world  has  been  heroism,  in  an- 
other felony  ;V  but  it  is  not  every  action  which  a  man 
says  is  heroic,  that  he  believes  is  right.  *  *  Forgiveness 
of  injuries  and  insults  is  accounted  by  one  sort  of  peo- 
ple magnanimity,  by  another,  meanness  ;"  and  yet  they 
who  thus  vulgarly  employ  the  word  meanness,  do  not 
imagine  that  forbearance  and  placability  are  really 
wrong. 

I  have  met  with  an  example  which  serves  to  confirm 
me  in  the  judgment,  that  public  notions  or  rather  pub- 
lic actions  are  a  very  equivocal  evidence  of  the  real 
sentiments  of  mankind.  "Can  there  be  greater  bar- 
barity than  to  hurt  an  infant?  Its  helplessness,  its 
innocence,  its  amiableness,  call  forth  the  compassion 
even  of  an  enemy. — What  then  should  we  imagine 
must  be  the  heart  of  a   parent  who  would  injure  that 


78  THE   IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

weakness  which  a  furious  enemy  is  afraid  to  violate  ? 
Yet  the  exposition,  that  is,  the  murder  of  new-born 
infants,  was  a  practice  allowed  of  in  almost  all  the 
states  of  Greece,  even  among  the  polite  and  civilized 
Athenians. ' '  This  seems  a  strong  case  against  us.  But 
what  were  the  grounds  upon  which  this  atrocity  was 
defended  ?— ' '  Philosophers,  instead  of  censuring,  sup- 
ported the  horrible  abuse,  by  far-fetched  considerations 
of  public  utility."* 

By  far-fetched  considerations  of  public  iitility  !  Why 
had  they  recourse  to  such  arguments  as  these  ?  Because 
they  found  that  the  custom  could  not  be  reconciled  with 
direct  and  acknowledged  rules  of  virtue :  because  they  felt 
and  knew  that  it  was  wrong.  The  very  circumstance 
that  they  had  recourse  to  "far-fetched  arguments,"  is 
evidence  that  they  were  conscious  that  clearer  and 
more  immediate  arguments  were  against  them.  They 
knew  that  infanticide  was  an  immoral  act. 

I  attach  some  importance  to  "the  indications  which 
this  class  of  reasoning  affords  of  the  comparative  uni- 
formity of  human  opinion,  even  when  it  is  nominally 
discordant.  One  other  illustration  may  be  offered  from 
more  private  life.  Boswell  in  his  Life  of  Johnson,  says 
that  he  proposed  the  question  to  the  moralist, 
1 '  Whether  duelling  was  contrary  to  the  laws  of  Christ- 
ianity V '  Let  the  reader  notice  the  essence  of  the  re- 
ply :  "Sir,  as  men  become  in  a  high  degree  refined, 
various  causes  of  offence  arise  which  are  considered  to 
be  of  such  importance  that  life  must  be  staked  to  atone 
for  them,  though  in  reality  they  are  not  so.  In  a  state 
of  highly  polished  society,  an  affront  is  held  to  be  a 
serious  injury.  It  must  therefore  be  resented,  or 
rather  a  duel  must  be  fought  upon  it,  as  men  have  agreed 
to  banish  from  their  society  one  who  puts  up  with  an 
affront  without  fighting  a  duel.  Now,  Sir,  it  is  never 
unlawful  to  fight  in  self-defence.     He  then  who  fights 

*  Theory  Mor.  Sent.  p.  5,  c.  2. 


CHAP.   VI.]  OF  THE  WIIX  OF  GOD.  79 

a  duel,  does  not  fight  from  passion  against  his  antago- 
nist, but  out  of  self-defence,  to  avert  the  stigma  of  the 
world,  and  to  prevent  himself  from  being  driven  from 
society. — While  such  notions  prevail  no  doubt  a  man 
may  lawfully  fight  a  duel."  The  question  was,  the 
consistency  of  duelling  with  the  laws  of  Christianity  ; 
and  there  is  not  a  word  about  Christianity  in  the  reply. 
Why  ?  Because  its  laws  can  never  be  shown  to  allow 
duelling  ;  and  Johnson  doubtless  knew  this.  Accord- 
ingly, like  the  philosophers  who  tried  to  justify  the 
kindred  crime  of  infanticide,  he  had  recourse  to  ' '  far- 
fetched considerations," — to  the  high  polish  of  society 
— to  the  stigma  of  the  world — to  the  notions  that  pre- 
vail. Now,  whilst  the  readers  of  Boswell  commonly 
think  they  have  Johnson's  authority  in  favor  of  duell- 
ing, I  think  they  have  his  authority  against  it.  I 
think  that  the  mode  in  which  he  justified  duelling, 
evinced  his  consciousness  that  it  was  not  compatible 
with  the  moral  law. 

And  thus  it  is,  that  with  respect  to  public  opinions, 
and  general  fashions,  and  thence  descending  to  private 
life,  we  shall  find  that  men  very  usually  know  the 
requisitions  of  the  moral  law  better  than  they  seem  to 
know  them  ;  and  that  he  who  estimates  the  moral 
knowledge  of  societies  or  individuals  by  their  common 
language,  refers  to  an  uncertain  and  fallacious  standard. 

After  all,  the  uniformity  of  human  opinion  respect- 
ing the  great  laws  of  morality  is  very  remarkable. 
Sir  James  Mackintosh  speaks  of  Grotius,  who  had  cited 
poets,  orators,  historians,  etc.,  and  says,  "He  quotes 
them  as  witnesses,  whose  conspiring  testimony ,  mightily 
strengthened  and  confirmed  by  their  discordance  on 
almost  every  other  subject,  is  a  conclusive  proof  of  the 
unanimity  of  the  whole  human  race,  on  the  great  rules 
of  duty  and  fundamental  principles  of  morals."* 

From  poets  and  orators  we  may  turn  to  savage  life. 
*  Disc,  on  Study  of  I^aw  of  Nature 


8o  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNICATION  [ESSAY  I. 

In  1683,  that  is,  soon  after  the  colonization  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  founder  of  the  colony  held  a  "  council  and 
consultation ' '  with  some  of  the  Indians.  In  the 
course  of  the  interview  it  appeared  that  these  savages 
believed  in  a  state  of  future  retribution  ;  and  they  de  - 
scribed  their  simple  ideas  of  the  respective  states  of  the 
good  and  had.  The  vices  that  they  enumerated  as 
those  which  would  consign  them  to  punishment,  are 
remarkable,  inasmuch  as  they  so  nearly  correspond 
to  similar  enumerations  in  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
They  were  "  theft,  swearing,  lying,  whoring,  murder, 
and  the  like  ;V*  and  the  New  Testament  affirms  that 
those  who  are  guilty  of  adultery,  fornication,  lying, 
theft,  murder,  etc.,  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of 
God.  The  same  writer  having  on  his  travels  met  with 
some  Indians,  stopped  and  gave  them  some  good  and 
serious  advices.  "They  wept,"  says  he,  "  and  tears 
ran  down  their  naked  bodies.  They  smote  their  hands 
upon  their  breasts  and  said,  '  The  Good  man  here  told 
them  what  I  said  was  all  good.'  "f 


But  reasonings  such  as  these  are  in  reality  not  neces- 
sary to  the  support  of  the  truth  of  the  immediate  com- 
munication of  the  will  of  God ;  because  if  the  variations 
in  men's  notions  of  right  and  wrong  were  greater  than 
they  are,  they  would  not  impeach  the  existence  of  that 
communication.  In  the  first  place,  we  never  affirm 
that  the  Deity  communicates  all  his  law  to  every  man  : 
and  in  the  second  place,  it  is  sufficiently  certain  that 
multitudes  know  his  laws,  and  yet  neglect  to  fulfill 
them. 

If,  in  conclusion,  it  should  be  asked,  What  assistance 
can  be  yielded,  in  the  investigation  of  publicly  auth- 
orized rules  of  virtue,  by  the  discussions  of  the  present 
chapter?  we  answer,  Very  little.    But  when  it  is  asked, 

*  John  Richardson's  L,ife. 

t  Ibid. 


CHAP.    VI.]  OF  THE  WIU,  OF  GOD.  8l 

Of  what  importance  are  they  as  illustrating  the  princi- 
ples of  morality  ?  we  answer,  Very  much.  If  there  be 
two  sources  from  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  enable 
mankind  to  know  His  will — a  law  written  externally, 
and  a  law  communicated  to  the  heart — it  is  evident 
that  both  must  be  regarded  as  principles  of  morality, 
and  that,  in  a  work  like  the  present,  both  should  be 
illustrated  as  such.  It  is  incidental  to  the  latter  mode 
of  moral  guidance,  that  it  is  little  adapted  to  the  for- 
mation of  external  rules  :  but  it  is  of  high  and  solemn 
importance  to  our  species  for  the  secret  direction  of 
the  individual  man. 


ESSAY  I. 

PART  II. 

SUBORDINATE  MEANS  OF  DISCOVERING 
THE  DIVINE  WILL. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND. 

Its  authority — Limits    to    its    authority — Morality    sometimes 
prohibits  what  the  law  permits. 

The  authority  of  civil  government  as  a  director  of 
individual  conduct,  is  explicitly  asserted  in  the  Christ- 
ian Scriptures  : — "Be  subject  to  principalities  and  pow- 
ers— Obey  magistrates,"* — "Submit  yourselves  to 
every  ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake  :  whether 
it  be  to  the  king,  as  supreme,  or  unto  governors,  as 
unto  them  that  are  sent  by  him  for  the  punishment  of 
evil  doers,  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that  do  well."f 

By  this  general  sanction  of  civil  government,  a  mul- 
titude of  questions  respecting  human  duty  are  at  once 
decided.  In  ordinary  cases,  he  upon  whom  the  magis- 
trate imposes  a  law  needs  not  to  seek  for  knowledge  of 
his  duty  upon  the  subject  from  a  higher  source.  The 
Divine  will  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
the  magistrate  commands.  Obedience  to  the  law  is 
obedience  to  the  expressed  will  of  God.  He  who,  in 
the  payment  of  a  tax  to  support  the  just  exercise  of 
government,  conforms  to  the  law  of  the  land,  as  truly 
obeys  the  Divine  will,  as  if  the  Deity  had  regulated 
questions  of  taxation,  by  express  rules. 

*  Tit.  iii.  i.  f  i  Pet.  ii.  13. 


CHAP.    I.]  THE  UW  OF  THE   UND.  83 

In  thus  founding  the  authority  of  civil  government 
upon  the  precepts  of  revelation,  we  refer  to  the  ulti- 
mate, and  for  that  reason  to  the  most  proper  sanction. 
Not,  indeed,  that  if  revelation  had  been  silent,  the  ob- 
ligation of  obedience  might  not  have  been  deduced 
from  other  considerations.  The  utility  of  government 
— its  tendency  to  promote  the  order  and  happiness  of 
society — powerfully  recommend  its  authority  ;  so  pow- 
erfully indeed,  that  it  is  probable  that  the  worst  gov- 
ernment which  ever  existed,  was  incomparably  better 
than  none  ;  and  we  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  see 
that  considerations  of  utility  involve  actual  moral 
obligation. 

The  purity  and  practical  excellence  of  the  motives  to 
civil  obedience  which  are  proposed  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  are  especially  worthy  of  regard.  '  'Submit 
for  the  Lord's  sake."  "  Be  subject,  not  only  for  wrath, 
but  for  conscience''  sake. ' '  Submission  for  wrath' s  sake, 
that  is,  from  fear  of  penalty,  implies  a  very  inferior 
motive  to  submission  upon  grounds  of  principle  and 
duty ;  and  as  to  practical  excellence,  who  cannot 
perceive  that  he  who  regulates  his  obedience  by  the 
motives  of  Christianity,  acts  more  worthily,  and  honor- 
ably, and  consistently,  than  he  who  is  influenced  only 
by  fear  of  penalties  ?  The  man  who  obeys  the  laws  for 
conscience'  sake,  will  obey  always  ;  alike  when  disobe- 
dience would  be  unpunished  and  unknown,  as  when  it 
would  be  detected  the  next  hour.  The  magistrate  has 
a  security  for  such  a  man's  fidelity,  which  no  other 
motive  can  supply.  A  smuggler  will  import  his  kegs 
if  there  is  no  danger  of  a  seizure — a  Christian  will  not 
buy  the  brandy  though  no  one  knows  it  but  himself. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  the  obligation  of  civil  obe- 
dience is  enforced,  whether  the  particular  command  of 
the  law  is  in  itself  sanctioned  by  morality  or  not. 
Antecedently  to  the  existence  of  the  law  of  the  magis- 


84  the  uw  of  the  i,and.  [essay  i. 

trate  respecting  the  importation  of  brandy,  it  was  of  no 
consequence  in  the  view  of  morality  whether  brandy 
was  imported  or  not  ;  but  the  prohibition  of  the  magis- 
trate involves  a  moral  obligation  to  refrain.  Other 
doctrine  has  been  held  ;  and  it  has  been  asserted,  that 
unless  the  particular  law  is  enforced  by  morality,  it 
does  not  become  obligatory  by  the  command  of  the 
state.*  But  if  this  were  true — if  no  law  was  obligatory 
that  was  not  previously  enjoined  by  morality,  ?io  moral 
obligation  would  result  from  the  law  of  the  land.  Such 
a  question  is  surely  set  at  rest  by,  ' '  Submit  yourselves 
to  every  ordinance  of  man." 

But  the  authority  of  civil  government  is  a  subordinate 
authority.  If,  from  any  cause,  the  magistrate  enjoins 
that  which  is  prohibited  by  the  moral  law,  the  duty  of 
obedience  is  withdrawn.  '  'All  human  authority  ceases 
at  the  point  where  obedience  becomes  criminal."  The 
reason  is  simple  ;  that  when  the  magistrate  enjoins  what 
is  criminal,  he  has  exceeded  his  power  :  ' '  the  minister  of 
of  God ' '  has  gone  beyond  his  commission.  There  is,  in 
our  day,,  no  such  thing  as  a  moral  plenipotentiary . 

Upon  these  principles,  the  first  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity acted  when  the  rulers  ''called  them,  and  com- 
manded them  not  to  speak  at  all  nor  teach  in  the  name 
of  Jesus." — "Whether,"  they  replied,  "it  be  right 
in  the  sight  of  God,  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than 
unto  God,  judge  ye."f  They  accordingly  "entered 
into  the  temple  early  in  the  morning  and  taught :"  and 
when,  subsequently,  they  were  again  brought  before 
the  council  and  interrogated,  they  replied,  "  We  ought 
to  obey  God  rather  than  men  ;  ' '  and  notwithstanding 
the  renewed  command  of  the  council,  ■ '  daily  in 
the  temple,  and  in  every  house,  they  ceased  not  to  teach 
and  preach  Jesus  Christ. "J  Nor  let  any  one  suppose 
*  See  Godwin's  Political  Justice. 

t  Acts  iv.  18.  %  Acts  v.  29,  42. 


CHAP.  I.]  THE  UW  OF  THE  LAND.  85 

that  there  is  any  thing  religious  in  the  motives  of  the 
apostles,  which  involved  a  peculiar  obligation  upon 
them  to  refuse  obedience  :  we  have  already  seen  that 
the  obligation  to  conform  to  religious  duty  and  to  moral 
duty,  is  one. 

To  disobey  the  civil  magistrate  is  however  not  a  light 
thing.  When  the  Christian  conceives  that  the  requi- 
sitions of  government  and  of  a  higher  law  are  conflict- 
ing, it  is  needful  that  he  exercise  a  strict  scrutiny  into  the 
principles  of  his  conduct.  But,  if  upon  such  scrutiny,  the 
contrariety  of  requisitions  appears  real,  no  room  is  left 
for  doubt  respecting  his  duty,  or  for  hesitation  in  per- 
forming it.  With  the  consideration  of  consequences 
he  has  then  no  concern  :  whatever  they  may  be,  his 
path  is  plain  before  him. 

It  is  sufficiently  evident  that  these  doctrines  respect 
non-compliance  only.  It  is  one  thing  not  to  comply 
with  laws,  and  another  to  resist  those  who  make  or  en- 
force them.  He  who  thinks  the  payment  of  tithes 
unchristian  ought  to  decline  to  pay  them  ;  but  he 
would  act  upon  strange  principles  of  morality,  if,  when 
an  officer  came  to  distrain  upon  his  property,  he  forcibly 
resisted  his  authority.* 

If  there  are  cases  in  which  the  positive  injunctions 
of  the  law  may  be  disobeyed,  it  is  manifest  that  the 
mere  permission  of  the  law  to  do  a  given  action,  con- 
veys no  sufficient  authority  to  perform  it.  There  are, 
perhaps,  no  disquisitions,  connected  with  the  present 
subject,  which  are  of  greater  practical  utility  than 
those  which  show,  that  not  every  thing  which  is  legally 
right  is  morally  right ;  that  a  man  may  be  entitled 
by  law   to  privileges   which   morality  forbids  him  to 

*  We  speak  here  of  private  obligations  only.  Respecting  the 
political  obligations  which  result  from  the  authority  of 
civil  government,  some  observations  will  be  found  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Civil  Obedience.     Ess.  iii.  c.  v. 


86  THE  I, AW  OF  THE  UND.  [ESSAY  I. 

exercise  or  to  possessions  which  morality  forbids  him 
to  enjoy. 

As  to  the  possession,  for  example,  of  property  :  the 
general  foundation  of  the  right  to  property  is  the  law 
of  the  land.  But  as  the  law  of  the  land  is  itself  subor- 
dinate, it  is  manifest  that  the  right  to  property  must 
be  subordinate  also,  and  must  be  held  in  subjection  to 
the  moral  law.  A  man  who  has  a  wife  and  two  sons, 
and  who  is  worth  fifteen  hundred  pounds,  dies  without 
a  will.  The  widow  possesses  no  separate  property,  but 
the  sons  have  received  from  another  quarter  ten  thousand 
pounds  a-piece.  Now,  of  the  fifteen  hundred  pounds 
which  the  intestate  left,  the  law  assigns  five  hundred 
to  the  mother,  and  five  hundred  to  each  son.  Are 
these  sons  morally  permitted  to  take  each  his  five  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  to  leave  their  parent  with  only  five 
hundred  for  her  support  ?  Every  man  I  hope  will  an- 
swer, No  :  and  the  reason  is  this  ;  that  the  moral  law, 
which  is  superior  to  the  law  of  the  land,  forbids  them 
to  avail  themselves  of  their  legal  rights.  The  moral 
law  requires  justice  and  benevolence,  and  a  due  consid- 
eration for  the  wants  and  necessities  of  others  ;  and  if 
justice  and  benevolence  would  be  violated  by  availing 
ourselves  of  legal  permissions,  those  permissions  are 
not  sufficient  authorities  to  direct  our  conduct. 

It  has  been  laid  down,  that  ' '  so  long  as  we  keep 
within  the  design  and  intention  of  a  law,  that  law  will 
justify  us,  inforo  conscientia  as  in  foro  humano,  what- 
ever be  the  equity  or  expediency  of  the  law  itself."* 
From  the  example  which  has  been  offered,  I  think  it 
sufficiently  appears  that  this  maxim  is  utterly  unsound: 
at  any  rate,  its  unsoundness  will  appear  from  a  brief 
historical  fact.  During  the  Revolutionary  war  in 
America,  the  Virginian  Legislature  passed  a  law,  by 
which  ' '  it  was  enacted,  that  all  merchants  and  planters 
*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  iii.  p.  I,  c.  4. 


CHAP.    I.]  THE  I.AW   OF   THE   UND.  '  87 

in  Virginia  who  owed  money  to  British  merchants, 
should  be  exonerated  from  their  debts,  if  they  paid  the 
money  due  into  the  public  treasury  instead  of  sending 
it  to  Great  Britain ;  and  all  such  as  stood  indebted, 
were  invited  to  come  forward  and  give  their  money,  in 
this  manner,  towards  the  support  of  the  contest  in 
which  America  was  then  engaged."  Now,  according 
to  the  principles  of  Paley,  these  Virginian  planters 
would  have  been  justified,  inforo  conscienticz \  in  defraud- 
ing the  British  merchants  of  the  money  which  was 
their  due.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  ' '  design  and  in- 
tention of  the  law  ' '  was  to  allow  the  fraud — the  plant- 
ers were  even  invited  to  commit  it ;  and  yet  the  heart 
of  every  reader  will  tell  him,  that  to  have  availed 
themselves  of  the  legal  permission,  would  have  been  an 
act  of  flagitious  dishonesty.  The  conclusion  is  there- 
fore distinct — that  legal  decisions  respecting  property, 
are  not  always  a  sufficient  warrant  for  individual  con- 
duct. To  the  extreme  disgrace  of  these  planters  it 
should  be  told,  that  although  at  first,  when  they  would 
have  gained  little  by  the  fraud,  few  of  them  paid  their 
debts  into  the  treasury,  yet  afterwards  many  large 
sums  were  paid.  The  Legislature  offered  to  take  the 
American  paper  money  :  and  as  this  paper  money,  in 
consequence  of  its  depreciation,  was  not  worth  a  hund- 
redth part  of  its  value  in  specie,  the  planters,  in  thus 
paying  their  debts  to  their  own  government,  paid  but 
one  pound  instead  of  a  hundred,  and  kept  the  remain- 
ing ninety-nine  in  their  own  pockets  !  Profligate  as 
these  planters  and  as  this  Legislature  were,  it  is  pleasant 
for  the  sake  of  America  to  add,  that  in  1796,  after  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had  been  erected, 
the  British  merchants  brought  the  affair  before  it,  and 
the  judges  directed  that  every  one  of  these  debts  should 
again  be  paid  to  the  rightful  creditors. 

It  might  be  almost  imagined  that  the  moral  philosc- 


88  i  THE  I,AW  OF  THE  I,AND.  [ESSAY  I. 

pher  designed  to  justify  such  conduct  as  that  of  the 
planters.  He  says,  when  a  man  ■ '  refuses  to  pay  a 
debt  of  the  reality  of  which  he  is  conscious,  he  cannot 
plead  the  intention  of  the  statute,  unless  he  could  show 
that  the  law  intended  to  interpose  its  supreme  author- 
ity to  acquit  men  of  debts  of  the  existence  and  justice 
of  which  they  were  themselves  sensible."*  Now  the 
planters  could  show  that  this  was  the  intention  of  the 
law,  and  yet  they  were  not  justified  in  availing  them- 
selves of  it.  The  error  of  the  moralist  is  founded  in 
the  assumption,  that  there  is  "  supreme  authority  "  in 
the  law.  Make  that  authority,  as  it  really  is,  subordi- 
nate, and  the  error  and  the  fallacious  rule  which  is 
founded  upon  it,  will  be  alike  corrected. 

In  applying  to  the  law  of  the  land  as  a  moral  guide, 
it  is  of  importance  to  distinguish  its  intention  from  its 
letter.  The  intention  is  not,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  final  consideration,  but  the  design  of  a  legislature  is 
evidently  of  greater  import,  and  consequent  obligation, 
than  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  words  in  which 
that  design  is  proposed  to  be  expressed.  The  want  of 
a  sufficient  attention  to  this  simple  rule,  occasions 
many  snares  to  private  virtue,  and  the  commission  of 
much  practical  injustice.  In  consequence,  partly  of 
the  inadequacy  of  all  language,  and  partly  of  the  ina- 
bility of  those  who  frame  laws,  accurately  to  provide 
for  cases  which  subsequently  arise,  it  happens  that  the 
literal  application  of  a  law,  sometimes  frustrates  the 
intention  of  the  legislator,  and  violates  the  obligations 
of  justice.  Whatever  be  the  cause,  it  is  found  in 
practice,  that  courts  of  law  usually  regard  the  letter  of 
a  statute  rather  than  its  general  intention  ;  and  hence 
it  happens  that  many  duties  devolve  upon  individuals 
in  the  application  of  the  laws  in  their  own  affairs.  If 
legal  courts  usually  decide  by  the  letter,  and  if  decis- 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  iii,  p.  1,  c.  4. 


CHAP.  II.]  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE.  89 

ion  by  the  letter  often  defeats  the  objects  of  the  legis- 
lator and  the  claims  of  justice,  how  shall  these  claims 
be  satisfied  except  by  the  conscientious  and  forbearing 
integrity  of  private  men  ?  Of  the  cases  in  which  this 
integrity  should  be  brought  into  exercise,  several  exam- 
ples will  be  offered  in  the  early  part  of  the  next  Essay. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  LAW  OF  NATURE. 


Its  authority — Limits   to  its  authority — Obligations  resulting 

from  the  rights  of  Nature — Incorrect  ideas  attached 

to  the  word  Nature. 

We  here  use  the  term,  the  law  of  nature,  as  a  con- 
venient title  under  which  to  advert  to  the  authority,  in 
moral  affairs,  of  what  are  called  natural  instincts  and 
natural  rights. 

' '  They  who  rank  pity  among  the  original  impulses 
of  our  nature,  rightly  contend  that  when  this  principle 
prompts  us  to  the  relief  of  human  misery,  it  indicates 
the  divine  intention  and  our  duty .  Indeed,  the  same 
conclusion  is  deducible  from  the  existence  of  the  pas- 
sion, whatever  account  be  given  of  its  origin.  Whether 
it  be  an  instinct  or  a  habit,  it  is  in  fact  a  property 
of  our  nature  which  God  appointed."* 

I  should  reason  similarly  respecting  natural  rights 
— the  right  to  life — to  personal  liberty — to  a  share  of 
the  productions  of  the  earth,  The  fact  that  life  is 
given  us  by  our  Creator — that  our  personal  powers  and 
mental  dispositions  are  adapted  by  Him  to  personal 
liberty — and  that  He  has  constituted  our  bodies  so  as 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  3,  p.  2,  c.  5. 


90  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE,  [ESSAY  I. 

to  need  the  productions  of  the  earth,  are  satisfactory 
indications  of  the  Divine  will,  and  of  human  duty. 

So  that  we  conclude  the  general  proposition  is  true — 
that  a  regard  to  the  law  of  nature,  in  estimating 
human  duty,  is  accordant  with  the  will  of  God.  There 
is  little  necessity  for  formally  insisting  on  the  authority 
of  the  law  of  nature,  because  few  are  disposed  to 
dispute  that  authority,  at  least  when  their  own  interests 
are  served  by  appealing  to  it.  If  this  authority  were 
questioned,  perhaps  it  might  be  said  that  the  expres- 
sion of  the  Divine  will  tacitly  sanctions  it,  because  that 
expression  is  addressed  to  us  under  the  supposition  that 
our  constitution  is  such  as  it  is  ;  and  because  some  of 
the  Divine  precepts  appear  to  specify  a  point  at  which 
the  authority  of  the  law  of  nature  stops.  To  say  that 
a  rule  is  only  in  some  cases  wrong,  is  to  say,  that  in 
many  it  is  right :  to  which  may  be  added  the  consider- 
ation, that  the  tendency  of  the  law  of  nature  is  mani- 
festly beneficial.  No  man  questions  that  the  ' '  original 
impulses  of  our  nature ' '  tend  powerfully  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  species. 

In  speaking  of  the  instincts  of  nature,  we  enter  into 
no  curious  definitions  of  what  constitutes  an  instinct. 
Whether  any  of  our  passions  or  emotions  be  properly 
instinctive,  or  the  effect  of  association,  is  of  little  con- 
sequence to  the  purpose,  so  long  as  they  actually  sub- 
sist in  the  human  economy,  and  so  long  as  we  have 
reason  to  believe  that  their  subsistence  there  is  in 
accordance  with  the  Divine  will. 

But  the  authority  of  the  law  of  nature,  like  every 
other  authority,  is  subordinate  to  that  of  the  moral 
law.  This  indeed  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  those 
reasonings  which  show  the  universal  supremacy  of  that 
law.  Yet  it  may  be  of  advantage  to  remember  such 
expressions  as  these  :  ' '  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that  kill 
the  body,  and  after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can 


CHAP.    II.]  THE   I.AW  OF   NATURE.  91 

do.  But  fear  him  which,  after  he  hath  killed,  hath 
power  to  cast  into  hell."*  This  appears  distinctly  to 
place  an  instinct  of  nature  in  subordination  to  the 
moral  law.  The  ' '  fear  of  them  that  kill  the  body,"  re- 
sults from  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  ;  and  by  this 
instinct  we  are  not  to  be  guided  when  the  Divine  will 
requires  us  to  repress  its  voice. 

Parental  affection  has  been  classed  amongst  the  in- 
stincts.! The  declaration,  "He  that  loveth  son  or 
daughter  more  than  me,  is  not  worthy  of  me,"  J  clearly 
subjects  this  instinct  to  the  higher  authority  of  the 
Divine  will ;  for  the  ' '  love  ' '  of  God  is  to  be  mani- 
fested by  obedience  to  his  law.  Another  declaration 
to  the  same  import  subjects  also  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  :  ' '  If  a  man  hate  not  (that  is  by  compar- 
ison) his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple. "|| 
And  here  it  is  remarkable,  that  these  affections  or  in- 
stincts are  adduced  for  the  purpose  of  inculcating  their 
subordination  to  the  moral  law. 

Upon  one  of  the  most  powerful  instincts  of  nature, 
the  restraints  of  revelation  are  emphatically  laid.  Its 
operation  is  restricted,  not  to  a  few  of  its  possible  ob- 
jects, but  exclusively  to  one  ;  and  to  that  one  upon  an 
express  and  specified  condition. § 

The  propriety  of  holding  the  natural  impulses  in 
subjection  to  a  higher  law,  appears  to  be  asserted  in 
this  language  of  Dugald  Stewart :  ' '  The  dictates  of 
reason  and  conscience  inform  us,  in  language  which  it 
is  impossible  to  mistake,  that  it  is  sometimes  a  duty  to 
check  the  most  amiable  and  pleasing  emotions  of  the 
heart  ;  to  withdraw,  for  example,  from  .the  sight  of 
those  distresses  which  stronger  claims  forbid  us  to  re- 
lieve, and  to  deny  ourselves  that  exquisite  luxury 
which  arises  from  the  exercise  of  humanity. ' '     Even 

*  Luke  xii.  4.         \  Dr.  Price.         %  Matt.  x.  37. 

||  Luke  xiv.  26. 

\  See  Matt.  v.  28.     1  Cor.  vi.  9.  vii.  I,  2.     Gal.  v.  19,  etc. 


92  THE  IyAW  OF   NATURE.  [ESSAY  I. 

that  morality  which  is  not  founded  upon  religion, 
recommends  the  same  truth.  Godwin  says,  that  if 
Fenelon  were  in  his  palace,  and  it  took  fire,  and  it  so 
happened  that  the  life  either  of  himself  or  of  his  cham- 
bermaid must  be  sacrificed,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the 
woman  to  repress  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  and 
sacrifice  hers — because  Fenelon  would  do  more  good  in 
the  world.*  If  the  morality  of  scepticism  inculcates 
this  subjugation  of  our  instincts  to  indeterminate  views 
of  advantage,  much  more  does  the  morality  of  the  New 
Testament  teach  us  to  subject  them  to  the  determinate 
will  of  God. 

It  is  upon  these  principles  that  some  of  the  most 
noble  examples  of  human  excellence  have  been  exhib- 
ited— those  of  men  who  have  died  for  the  testimony  of 
a  good  conscience.  If  the  strongest  of  our  instincts — 
if  that  instinct,  excited  to  its  utmost  vigor  by  the  ap- 
prehension of  a  dreadful  death,  might  be  of  weight  to 
suspend  the  obligation  of  the  moral  law,  it  surely 
might  have  been  suspended  in  the  case  of  those  who 
thus  proved  their  fidelity. 

Yet,  obvious  as  is  the  propriety  and  the  duty  of  thus 
preferring  the  Divine  law  before  all,  the  dictates  or 
the  rights  of  nature  are  continually  urged  as  of  para- 
mount obligation.  Many  persons  appear  to  think  that 
if  a  given  action  is  dictated  by  the  law  of  nature,  it  is 
quite  sufficient.  Respecting  the  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation, especially,  they  appear  to  conclude  that  to 
whatever  that  instinct  prompts,  it  is  lawful  to  conform 
to  its  voice.  They  do  not  surely  reflect  upon  the  mon- 
strousness  of  -their  opinions  :  they  do  not  surely  con- 
sider that  they  are  absolutely  superseding  the  moral 
law  of  God,  and  superseding  it  upon  considerations 
resulting  merely  from  the  animal  part  of  our  constitu- 
tion. The  Divine  laws  respect  the  whole  human  econ- 
*  Political  Justice. 


CHAP.   II.]  THE  I,AW  OF  NATURE.  93 

omy  —our  prospects  in  another  world  as  well  as  our 
existence  in  the  present. 

Some  men,  again,  speak  of  our  rights  in  a  state  of 
native,  as  if  to  be  in  a  state  of  nature  was  to  be  with- 
out the  jurisdiction  of  the  moral  law.  But  if  man  be 
a  moral  and  responsible  agent,  that  law  applies  every 
where  ;  to  a  state  of  nature  as  truly  as  to  every  other 
state.  If  some  other  human  being  had  been  left  with 
Selkirk  on  Juan  Fernandez,  and  if  that  other  seized  an 
animal  which  Selkirk  had  ensnared,  would  Selkirk 
have  been  justified  in  asserting  his  natural  right  to  the 
animal  by  whatever  means  f  It  is  very  possible  that  no 
means  would  have  availed  to  procure  the  restoration  of 
the  rabbit  or  the  bird  short  of  kilting  the  offender. 
Might  Selkirk  kill  the  man  in  assertion  of  his  natural 
rights?  Every  one  answers,  No — because  the  unso- 
phisticated dictates  in  every  man's  mind  assure  us  that 
the  rights  of  nature  are  subordinate  to  higher  laws. 

Situations  similar  to  those  of  a  state  of  nature  some- 
times arise  in  society  ;*  as  where  money  is  demanded, 
or  violence  is  committed  by  one  person  on  another, 
where  no  third  person  can  be  called  in  to  assistance. 
The  injured  party,  in  such  a  case,  cannot  go  to  every 
length  in  his  own  cause  by  virtue  of  the  law  of  nature: 
he  can  go  only  so  far  as  the  moral  law  allows.  These 
considerations  will  be  found  peculiarly  applicable  to 
the  rights  of  self-defence  ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  find 
these  doctrines  supported  by  that  sceptical  morality  to 
which  we  just  now  referred.  The  author  of  Political 
fustice  maintains  that  man  possesses  no  rights  ;  that  is, 
no  absolute  rights — none,  of  which  the  just  exercise  is 
not  conditional  upon  the  permission  of  a  higher  rule. 
That  rule,  with  him,  is  "  Justice" — with  us  it  is  the 
law  of  God  ;  but  the  reasoning  is  the  same  in  kind. 

Nevertheless,  the  natural  rights  of  man   ought   to 

*  See  Iyocke  on  Gov.  b.  ii.  c.  7. 


94  THK  I,AW  OF  NATURE.  [ESSAY  I. 

possess  extensive  application  both  in  private  and  polit- 
ical affairs.  If  it  were  sufficiently  remembered,  that 
these  rights  are  abstractedly  possessed  in  equality  by 
all  men,  we  should  find  many  imperative  claims  upon 
us  with  which  we  do  not  now  comply.  The  artificial 
distinctions  of  society  induce  forgetfulness  of  the  cir- 
cumstance that  we  are  all  brethren  :  not  that  I  would 
countenance  the  speculation  of  those  who  think  that 
all  men  should  be  now  practically  equal  ;  but  that 
these  distinctions  are  such,  that  the  general  rights  of 
nature  are  invaded  in  a  degree  which  nothing  can  jus- 
tify. There  are  natural  claims  of  the  poor  upon  the 
rich,  of  dependents  upon  their  superiors,  which  are 
very  commonly  forgotten  :  there  are  endless  acts  of 
superciliousness,  and  unkindness,  and  oppression,  in 
private  life,  which  the  law  of  nature  emphatically 
condemns.  When,  sometimes,  I  see  a  man  of  fortune 
speaking  in  terms  of  supercilious  command  to  his  ser- 
vant, I  feel  that  he  needs  to  go  and  learn  some  lessons 
of  the  law  of  nature.  I  feel  that  he  has  forgotten 
what  he  is,  and  what  he  is  not,  and  what  his  brother 
is  :  he  has  forgotten  that  by  nature  he  and  his  servant 
are  in  strictness  equal  ;  and  that  although,  by  the  per- 
mission of  Providence,  a  various  allotment  is  assigned 
to  them  now,  he  should  regard  every  one  with  that 
consideration  and  respect  which  is  due  to  a  man  and  a 
brother.  And  when  to  these  considerations  are  added 
those  which  result  from  the  contemplation  of  our  rela- 
tionship to  God — that  we  are  the  common  objects  of 
his  bounty  and  his  goodness,  and  that  we  are  heirs  to 
a  common  salvation,  we  are  presented  with  such 
motives  to  pay  attention  to  the  rights  of  nature,  as 
constitute  an  imperative  obligation. 

The  political  duties  which  result  from  the  law  of 
nature,  it  is  not  our  present  business  to  investigate ; 
but  it  may  be  observed  here,  that  a  very  limited  appeal 


CHAP.   II.]  THE  IvAW  OF   NATURE.  95 

to  facts  is  sufficient  to  evince,  that  by  many  political 
institutions  the  rights  of  nature  have  been  grieviously 
sacrificed  ;  and  that  if  those  rights  had  been  sufficiently 
regarded,  many  of  these  vicious  institutions  would 
never  have  been  exhibited  in  the  world. 


It  appears  worth  while  at  the  conclusion  of  this 
chapter  to  remark,  that  a  person  when  he  speaks  of 
"Nature,"  should  know  distinctly  what  he  means. 
The  word  carries  with  it  a  sort  of  indeterminate  authority ; 
and  he  who  uses  it  amiss,  may  connect  that  authority 
with  rules  or  actions  which  are  little  entitled  to  it. 
There  are  few  senses  in  which  the  word  is  used,  that 
do  not  refer,  however  obscurely,  to  God  ;  and  it  is  for 
that  reason  that  the  notion  of  authority  is  connected 
with  the  word.  "The  very  name  of  nature  implies, 
that  it  must  owe  its  birth  to  some  prior  agent,  or,  to 
speak  properly,  signifies  in  itself  nothing."*  Yet,  un- 
meaning as  the  term  is,  it  is  one  of  which  many  per- 
sons are  very  fond  ; — whether  it  be  that  their  notions 
are  really  indistinct,  or  that  some  purposes  are  answered 
by  referring  to  the  obscurity  of  nature  rather  than  to 
God.  "Nature  has  decorated  the  earth  with  beauty 
and  magnificence," — "Nature  has  furnished  us  with 
joints  and  limbs," — are  phrases  sufficiently  unmean- 
ing ;  and  yet  I  know  not  that  they  are  likely  to  do 
any  other  harm  than  to  give  currency  to  the  common 
fiction.  But  when  it  is  said,  that  "Nature  teaches  us 
to  adhere  to  truth, ' ' — "Nature  condemns  us  for  dishon- 
esty or  deceit," — "  Men  are  taught  by  nature  that  they 
are  responsible  beings," — there  is  considerable  danger 
that  we  have  both  fallacious  and  injurious  notions  of 
the  authority  which  thus  teaches  or  condemns  us. 
Upon  this  subject  it  were  well  to  take  the  advice  of 
Boyle:    "Nature,"    he  says,    "is  sometimes,  indeed 

*  Milton  :  Christian  Doct.  p.  14. 


96  UTILITY.  [ESSAY  I. 

commonly,  taken  for  a  kind  of  semi-deity.  In  this 
sense  it  is  best  not  to  use  it  at  all."*  It  is  dangerous 
to  induce  confusion  into  our  ideas  respecting  our  rela- 
tionship with  God. 

A  law  of  nature  is  a  very  imposing  phrase  ;  and  it 
might  be  supposed,  from  the  language  of  some  persons, 
that  nature  was  an  independent  legislatress,  who  had 
sat  and  framed  laws  for  the  government  of  mankind. 
Nature  is  nothing ;  yet  it  would  seem  that  men  do 
sometimes  practically  imagine,  that  a  "law  of  nature" 
possesses  proper  and  independent  authority  ;  and  it 
may  be  suspected  that  with  some  the  notion  is  so  pal- 
pable and  strong,  that  they  set  up  the  authority  of 
1 '  the  law  of  nature  ' '  without  reference  to  the  will  of 
God,  or  perhaps  in  opposition  to  it.  Even  if  notions 
like  these  float  in  the  mind  only  with  vapory  indistinct- 
ness, a  correspondent  indistinctness  of  moral  notions  is 
likely  to  ensue.  Every  man  should  make  to  himself 
the  rule,  never  to  employ  the  word  Nature  when  he 
speaks  of  ultimate  moral  authority.  A  law  possesses 
no  authority;  the  authority  rests  only  in  the  legislator: 
and  as  nature  makes  no  laws,  a  law  of  nature  involves 
no  obligation  but  that  which  is  imposed  by  the  Divine 
will. 


CHAPTER  III. 

UTILITY. 


Obligations  resulting  from  Expediency — Limits  to 
these  obligations. 

That  in  estimating  our  duties  in  life  we  ought  to 

pay  regard  to  what  is  useful  and  beneficial  —to  what  is 

*  Free  Inquiry  into  the  vulgarly  received  Notions  of  Nature. 


CHAP.   III.]  UTILITY.  97 

likely  to  promote  the  welfare  of  ourselves  and  of  others 
— can  need  little  argument  to  prove.  Yet,  if  it  were 
required,,  it  may  be  easily  shown  that  this  regard  to 
utility  is  recommended  or  enforced  in  the  expression 
of  the  Divine  will.  That  will  requires  the  exercise  of 
pure  and  universal  benevolence  ; — which  benevolence 
is  exercised  in  consulting  the  interests,  the  welfare, 
and  the  happiness  of  mankind.  The  dictates  of  utility, 
therefore,  are  frequently  no  other  than  the  dictates  of 
benevolence. 

Or,  if  we  derive  the  obligations  of  utility  from  con- 
siderations connected  with  our  reason,  they  do  not  ap- 
pear much  less  distinct.  To  say  that  to  consult  utility 
is  right,  is  almost  the  same  as  to  say,  it  is  right  to  ex- 
ercise our  understandings.  The  daily  and  hourly  use 
of  reason  is  to  discover  what  is  fit  -to  be  done  ;  that  is, 
what  is  useful  and  expedient ;  and  since  it  is  manifest 
that  the  Creator,  in  endowing  us  with  the  faculty,  de- 
signed that  we  should  exercise  it,  it  is  obvious  that  in 
this  view  also  a  reference  to  expediency  is  consistent 
with  the  Divine  will. 

When  (higher  laws  being  silent)  a  man  judges  that 
of  two  alternatives  one  is  dictated  by  greater  utility, 
that  dictate  constitutes  an  obligation  upon  him  to  pre- 
fer it.  I  should  not  hold  a  landowner  innocent,  who 
knowingly  persisted  in  adopting  a  bad  mode  of  raising 
corn  ;  nor  should  I  hold  the  person  innocent  who  op- 
posed an  improvement  in  shipbuilding,  or  who  ob- 
structed the  formation  of  a  turnpike  road  that  would 
benefit  the  public.  These  are  questions,  not  of  prud- 
ence merely,  but  of  morals  also. 

Obligations  resulting  from  utility  possess  great  ex- 
tent of  application  to  political  affairs.  There  are,  in- 
deed, some  public  concerns  in  which  the  moral  law, 
antecedently,  decides  nothing.  Whether  a  duty  shall 
be  imposed,  or  a  charter  granted,  or  a  treaty  signed, 


98  UTILITY.  [ESSAY  I. 

are  questions  which  are  perhaps  to  be  determined  by- 
expediency  alone  :  but  when  a  public  man  is  of  the 
judgment  that  any  given  measure  will  tend  to»the  gen- 
eral good,  he  is  immoral  if  he  opposes  that  measure. 
The  immorality  may  indeed  be  made  out  by  a  some- 
what different  process : — such  a  man  violates  those 
duties  of  benevolence  which  religion  imposes :  he 
probably  disregards,  too,  his  sense  of  obligation  ;  for 
if  he  be  of  the  judgment  that  a  given  measure  will  tend 
to  the  general  good,  conscience  will  scarcely  be  silent 
in  whispering  that  ,he  ought  not  to  oppose  it. 

It  is  sufficiently  evident,  upon  the  principles  which 
have  hitherto  been  advanced,  that  considerations  of 
utility  are  only  so  far  obligatory  as  they  are  in  accord- 
ance with  the  moral  law.  Pursuing,  however,  the  meth- 
od which  has  been  adopted  in  the  last  two  chapters,  it 
may  be  observed,  that  this  subserviency  of  utility  to 
the  Divine  will,  appears  to  be  required  by  the  written 
revelation.  That  habitual  preference  of  futurity  to  the 
present  time,  which  Scripture  exhibits,  indicates  that 
our  interests  here  should  be  held  in  subordination  to 
our  interests  hereafter  :  and  as  these  higher  interests 
are  to  be  consulted  by  the  means  which  revelation  pre- 
scribes, it  is  manifest  that  those  means  are  to  be  pur- 
sued, whatever  we  may  suppose  to  be  their  effects  upon 
the  present  welfare  of  ourselves  or  of  other  men.  ' '  If  in 
this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  God,  then  are  we  of  all 
men  most  miserable."  It  certainly  is  not,  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  word,  expedient  to  be  most  miserable. 
And  why  did  they  thus  sacrifice  expediency  ?  Because 
the  communicated  will  of  God  required  that  course  of 
life  by  which  human  interests  were  apparently  sacrificed. 
It  will  be  perceived  that  these  considerations  result 
from  the  truth,  (too  little  regarded  in  talking  of  "  Ex- 
pediency "  and  "General  Benevolence")  that  utility, 
as  it  respects  mankind,  cannot  be  properly  consulted 


CHAP.   III.]  UTIUTY.  99 

without  taking  into  account  our  interests  in  futurity. 
"Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die,"  is  a 
maxim  of  which  all  would  approve  if  we  had  no  con- 
cerns with  another  life.  That  which  might  be  very 
expedient  if  death  were  annihilation,  may  be  very  in- 
expedient now. 

"If  ye  say,  We  will  not  dwell  in  this  land,  neither 
obey  the  voice  of  the  L,ord  your  God,  saying,  No  ;  but 
we  will  go  into  the  land  of  Egypt,  where  we  shall  see 
no  war/'  "  nor  have  hunger  of  bread ;  and  there  will 
we  dwell  ;  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  the  sword,  which 
ye  feared,  shall  overtake  you  there  in  the  land  of  Egypt; 
and  the  famine,  where  of  ye  were  afraid,  shall  follow  close 
after  you  there  in  Egypt :  and  there  ye  shall  die."* — 
"  We  will  burn  incense  unto  the  queen  of  heaven,  and 
pour  out  drink-offerings  unto  her  ;  for  then  had  we 
plenty  of  victuals,  and  were  well,  and  saw  no  evil.  But 
since  we  left  off,  we  have  wanted  all  things,  and  have 
been  consumed  by  the  sword,  and  by  the  famine." — 
Therefore,  "  I  will  watch  over  them  for  evil,  and  not 
for  good."f  These  reasoners  argued  upon  the  princi- 
ple of  making  expediency  the  paramount  law  ;  and  it 
may  be  greatly  doubted  whether  those  who  argue  upon 
that  principle  now,  have  better  foundation  for  their 
reasoning  than  those  of  old.  Here  was  the  prospect  of 
advantage  founded,  as  they  thought,  upon  experience. 
One  course  of  action  had  led  (so  they  reasoned)  to  war 
and  famine,  and  another  to  plenty,  and  health,  and 
general  well-being :  yet  still  our  Universal  Lawgiver 
required  them  to  disregard  all  these  conclusions  of  ex- 
pediency, and  simply  to  conform  to  His  will. 

After  all,  the  general  experience  is,  that  what  is 
most  expedient  with  respect  to  another  world,  is  most 
expedient  with  respect  to  the  present.  There  may  be 
cases,  and  there  have  been,  in  which  the  Divine  will 

*  Jer.  xlii.  f  Jer.  xliv.  • 


IOO  UTILITY.  [KSSAY  I. 

may  require  an  absolute  renunciation  of  our  present 
interests  ;  as  the  martyr  who  maintains  his  fidelity, 
sacrifices  all  possibility  of  advantage  now.  But  these 
are  unusual  cases  ;  and  the  experience  of  the  contrary 
is  so  general,  that  the  truth  has  been  reduced  to  a  pro- 
verb. Perhaps  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty,  he 
best  consults  his  present  welfare,  who  endeavors  to  se- 
cure it  in  another  world.  "  By  the  wise  contrivance 
of  the  author  of  nature,  virtue  is  upon  all  ordinary 
occasions,  even  with  regard  to  this  life,  real  wisdom, 
and  the  surest  and  readiest  means  of  obtaining  both 
safety  and  advantage."*  Were  it  however,  otherwise, 
the  truth  of  our  principles  would  not  be  shaken. 
Men's  happiness,  and  especially  the  happiness  of  good 
men,  does  not  consist  merely  in  external  things.  The 
promise  of  a  hundred  fold  in  this  present  life  may 
still  be  fulfilled  in  mental  felicity  ;  and  if  it  could  not 
be,  who  is  the  man  that  would  exclude  from  his  com- 
putations the  prospect,  in  the  world  to  come,  of  life 
everlasting  ? 

In  the  endeavor  to  produce  the  greatest  sum  of  hap- 
piness, or  which  is  the  same  thing,  in  applying  the 
dictates  of  utility  to  our  conduct  in  life,  there  is  one 
species  of  utility  that  is  deplorably  disregarded,  both  in 
private  and  public  affairs — that  which  respects  the 
religions  and  moral  welfare  of  mankind.  If  you  hear 
a  politician  expatiating  upon  the  good  tendency  of  a 
measure,  he  tells  you  how  greatly  it  will  promote  the 
interests  of  commerce,  or  how  it  will  enrich  a  colony, 
or  how  it  will  propitiate  a  powerful  party,  or  how  it 
will  injure  a  nation  whom  he  dreads;  but  you  hear 
probably  not  one  word  of  enquiry  whether  it  will  cor- 
rupt the  character  of  those  who  execute  the  measure, 
or  whether  it  will  introduce  vices  into  the  colony,  or 
whether  it  will  present  new  temptations  to  the  virtue 

*  Dr.  Smith :  Theor.  Mor.  Sent. 


CHAP.  III.]  UTILITY.  IOI 

of  the  public.  And  yet  these  considerations  are  per- 
haps by  far  the  most  important  in  the  view  even  of  en- 
lightened expediency  ;  for  it  is  a  desperate  game  to 
endeavor  to  benefit  a  people  by  means  which  may 
diminish  their  virtue.  Even  such  a  politician  would 
probably  assent  to  the  unapplied  proposition,  "the 
virtue  of  a  people  is  the  best  security  for  their  welfare." 
It  is  the  same  in  private  life.  You  hear  a  parent  who 
proposes  to  change  his  place  of  residence,  or  to  engage 
in  a  new  profession  or  pursuit,  discussing  the  compara- 
tive conveniences  of  the  proposed  situation,  the  pros- 
pect of  profit  in  the  new  profession,  the  pleasures  which 
will  result  from  the  new  pursuit ;  but  you  hear  prob- 
ably not  one  word  of  enquiry  whether  the  change  of 
residence  will  deprive  his  family  of  virtuous  and  bene- 
ficial society  which  will  not  be  replaced — whether  the 
contemplated  profession  will  not  tempt  his  own  virtue 
or  diminish  his  usefulness — or  whether  his  children 
will  not  be  exposed  to  circumstances  that  will  probably 
taint  the  purity  of  their  minds.  And  yet  this  parent 
will  acknowledge,  in  general  terms,  that  '  *  nothing  can 
compensate  for  the  loss  of  religious  and  moral  char- 
acter." Such  persons  surely  make  very  inaccurate 
computations  of  expediency. 

As  to  the  actual  conduct  of  political  affairs,  men  fre- 
quently legislate  as  if  there  was  no  such  thing  as  relig- 
ion or  morality  in  the  world;  or  as  if,  at  any  rate, 
religion  and  morality  had  no  concern  with  affairs  of 
state.  I  believe  that  a  sort  of  shame  (a  false  and  vul- 
gar shame  no  doubt)  would  be  felt  by  many  members 
of  senates,  in  directly  opposing  religious  or  moral  con- 
siderations to  prospects  of  advantage.  In  our  own 
country,  those  who  are  most  willing  to  do  this  receive, 
from  vulgar  persons,  a  name  of  contempt  for  their  ab- 
surdity !  How  inveterate  must  be  the  impurity  of  a 
system,  which  teaches  men  to  regard  as  ridiculous  that 
system  which  only  is  sound  ! 


102  THE   UW   OF   NATIONS.  [ESSAY  I. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS.— THE  LAW  OF  HONOR. 

Although  the  subjects  of  this  chapter  can  scarcely  be  regarded 
as  constituting  rules  of  life,  yet  we  are  induced  briefly  to  notice 
them  in  the  present  Essay,  partly,  on  account  of  the  importance 
of  the  affairs  which  they  regulate,  and  partly,  because  they  will 
afford  satisfactory  illustration  of  the  principles  of  Morality. 


SECTION  I. 
THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 


Obligations  and  authority  of  the  Law  of  Nations — Its  abuses, 
and  the  limits  of  its  authority — Treaties. 

The  law  of  nations,  so  far  as  it  is  founded  upon  the 
principles  of  morality,  partakes  of  that  authority  which 
those  principles  possess  ;  so  far  as  it  is  founded  merely 
upon  the  mutual  conventions  of  states,  it  possesses  that 
authority  over  the  contracting  parties  which  results 
from  the  rule,  that  men  ought  to  abide  by  their  engage- 
ments. The  principal  considerations  which  present 
themselves  upon  the  subject,  appear  to  be  these  : 

i— That  the  law  of  nations  is  binding  upon  those 
states  who  knowingly  allow  themselves  to  be  regarded 
as  parties  to  it  : 

2 — That  it  is  wholly  nugatory  with  respect  to  those 
states  which  are  not  parties  to  it  : 

3 — That  it  is  of  no  force  in  opposition  to  the  moral 
law. 

I.  The  obligation  of  the  law  of  nations  upon  those 
who  join  in  the  convention,  is  plain — that  is,  it  rests, 
generally,  upon  all  civilized  communities  which  have 
intercourse  with  one  another.      A   tacit   engagement 


CHAP.  IV.]  THE   LAW   OF   NATIONS.  I03 

only  is,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  to  be  ex- 
pected ;  and  if  any  state  did  not  choose  to  conform  to 
the  law  of  nations,  it  should  publicly  express  its  dis- 
sent. The  law  of  nations  is  not  wont  to  tighten  the 
bonds  of  morality  ;  so  that  probably  most  of  its  positive 
requisitions  are  enforced  by  the  moral  law  :  and  this 
consideration  should  operate  as  an  inducement  to  a 
conscientious  fulfilment  of  these  requisitions.  In  time 
of  war,  the  law  of  nations  prohibits  poisoning  and 
assassination,  and  it  is  manifestly  imperative  upon 
every  state  to  forbear  them  :  but  whilst  morality  thus 
enforces  many  of  the  requisitions  of  the  law  of  nations, 
that  law  frequently  stops  short,  instead  of  following 
on  to  whither  morality  would  conduct  it.  This  dis- 
tinction between  assassination  and  some  other  modes  of 
destruction  that  are  practised  in  war,  is  not  perhaps 
very  accurately  founded  in  considerations  of  morality  : 
nevertheless,  since  the  distinction  is  made,  let  it  be 
made,  and  let  it  by  all  means  be  regarded.  Men  need 
not  add  arsenic  and  the  private  dagger  to  those  modes 
of  human  destruction  which  war  allows.  The  obliga- 
tion to  avoid  private  murder  is  clear,  even  though  it 
were  shown  that  the  obligation  extends  much  further. 
Whatever  be  the  reasonableness  of  the  distinction,  and 
of  the  rule  that  is  founded  upon  it,  it  is  perfidious  to 
violate  that  rule. 

So  it  is  with  those  maxims  of  the  law  of  nations 
which  require  that  prisoners  should  not  be  enslaved, 
and  that  the  persons  of  ambassadors  should  be  re- 
spected. Not  that  I  think  the  man  who  sat  down, 
with  only  the  principles  of  morality  before  him,  would 
easily  be  able  to  show,  from  those  principles,  that  the 
slavery  was  wrong  whilst  other  things  which  the  law 
of  nations  allows  are  right — but  that,  as  these  princi- 
ples actually  enforce  the  maxims,  as  the  observance  of 
them  is  agreed  on  by  civilized  states,  and  as  they  tend 


104  THE  IvAW   OF  NATIONS.  [ESSAY  I. 

to  diminish  the  evils  of  war,  it  is  imperative  on  states 
to  observe  them.  Incoherent  and  inconsistent  as  the 
law  of  nations  is,  when  it  is  examined  by  the  moral 
law,  it  is  pleasant  to  contemplate  the  good  tendency  of 
some  of  its  requisitions.  In  1702,  previous  to  the  de- 
claration of  war  by  this  country  (England),  a  number 
of  the  anticipated  "enemy's"  ships  had  been  seized 
and  detained.  When  the  declaration  was  made,  these 
vessels  were  released,  "in  pursuance,''  as  the  procla- 
mation stated,  "of  the  law  of  nations."  Some  of 
these  vessels  were  perhaps  shortly  after  captured,  and 
irrecoverably  lost  to  their  owners  :  yet  though  it  might 
perplex  the  Christian  moralist  to  show  that  the  release 
was  right  and  that  the  capture  was  right  too,  still  he  may 
rejoice  that  men  conform,  even  i?i  part,  to  the  purity 
of  virtue. 

Attempts  to  deduce  the  maxims  of  international  law 
as  they  now  obtain,  from  principles  of  morality,  will 
always  be  in  vain.  Grotius  seems  as  if  he  would  coun- 
tenance the  attempt  when  he  says,  ' '  Some  writers 
have  advanced  a  doctrine  which  can  never  be  admitted, 
maintaining  that  the  law  of  nations  authorizes  one 
power  to  commence  hostilities  against  another,  whose 
increasing  greatness  awakens  her  alarms.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  expediency,"  says  Grotius,  "such  a  measure 
may  be  adopted  ;  but  the  principles  of  justice  can 
never  be  advanced  in  its  favor.  "*  Alas!  if  principles  of 
justice  are  to  decide  what  the  law  of  nations  shall 
authorize,  it  will  be  needful  to  establish  a  new  code 
to-morrow.  A  great  part  of  the  code  arises  out  of  the 
conduct  of  war  ;  and  the  usual  practices  of  war  are  so 
foreign  to  principles  of  justice  and  morality,  that  it  is 
to  no  purpose  to  attempt  to  found  the  code  upon  them. 
Nevertheless,  let  those  who  refer  to  the  law  of  nations, 
introduce  morality  by  all  possible  means  ;  and  if  they 
*  Rights  of  War  and  Peace. 


CHAP.    IV.]  THE  UW  OF  NATIONS.  105 

think  they  cannot  appeal  to  it  always,  let  them  appeal 
to  it  where  they  can.  If  they  cannot  persuade  them- 
selves to  avoid  hostilities  when  some  injury  is  com- 
mitted by  another  nation,  let  them  avoid  them  when 
"another  nation's  greatness  merely  awakens  their 
alarms." 

II.  That  the  law  of  nations  is  wholly  nugatory  with 
respect  to  those  states  which  are  not  parties  to  it,  is  a 
truth  which,  however  sound,  has  been  too  little  re- 
garded in  the  conduct  of  civilized  nations.  The  state 
whose  subjects  discover  and  take  possession  of  an  un- 
inhabited island,  is  entitled  by  the  law  of  nations 
quietly  to  possess  it.  And  it  ought  quietly  to  possess 
it ;  not  that  in  the  view  of  reason  or  of  morality,  the 
circumstance  of  an  Englishman's  first  visiting  the 
shores  of  a  country,  gives  any  very  intelligible  right  to 
the  King  of  England  to  possess  it  rather  th?n  any 
other  prince,  but  that,  such  a  rule  having  been  agreed 
upon,  it  ought  to  be  observed  ;  but  by  whom  ?  By 
those  who  are  parties  to  the  agreement.  For  which 
reason,  the  discoverer  possesses  no  sufficient  claim  to 
oppose  his  right  to  that  of  a  people  who  were  not 
parties  to  it.  So  that  he  who,  upon  pretence  of  dis- 
covery, should  forcibly  exclude  from  a  large  extent  of 
territory  a  people  who  knew  nothing  of  European 
politics,  and  who  in  the  view  of  reason  possessed  an 
equal  or  a  greater  right,  undoubtedly  violates  the  ob- 
ligations of  morality .  It  may  serve  to  dispel  the  ob- 
scurity in  which  habit  and  self-interest  wrap  our  per- 
ceptions, to  consider,  that  amongst  the  states  which 
were  nearest  to  the  newly -discovered  land,  a  law  of 
nations  might  exist  which  required  that  such  land 
should  be  equally  divided  amongst  them.  Whose  law 
of  nations  ought  to  prevail  ?  That  of  European  states, 
or  that  of  states  in  the  Pacific  or  South  Sea?  How 
happens  it  that  the  Englishman  possesses  a  sounder 


106  THE   LAW   OF   NATIONS.  [ESSAY  I. 

right  to  exclude  all  other  nations,  than  surrounding 
nations  possess  to  partition  it  amongst  them  ? 

Unhappily,  our  law  of  nations  goes  much  further ; 
and  by  a  monstrous  abuse  of  power,  has  acted  upon  the 
same  doctrine  with  respect  to  inhabited  countries  ;  for 
when  these  have  been  discovered,  the  law  of  nations 
has  talked,  with  perfect  coolness,  of  setting  up  a  stand- 
ard, and  thenceforth  assigning  the  territory  to  the 
nation  whose  subjects  set  it  up  ;  as  if  the  previous  in- 
habitants possessed  no  other  claim  or  right  than  the 
bears  and  wolves.  It  has  been  asked  (and  asked  with 
great  reason,)  what  we  should  say  to  a  canoe-full  of 
Indians  who  should  discover  England,  and  take  posses- 
sion of  it  in  the  name  of  their  chief  ? 

Civilized  states  appear  to  have  acted  upon  the 
maxim,  that  no  people  possess  political  rights  but  those 
who  are  parties  to  the  law  of  nations  ;  and  accordingly 
the  his-tory  of  European  settlements  has  been,  so  far  as 
the  aborigines  were  concerned,  too  much  a  history  of 
outrage  and  treachery,  and  blood.  Penn  acted  upon 
sounder  principles  ;  he  perfectly  well  knew  that  neither 
an  established  practice,  nor  the  law  of  nations,  could 
impart  a  right  to  a  country  which  was  justly  possessed 
by  former  inhabitants  ;  and  therefore,  although  Charles 
II.  "granted  "  him  Pennsylvania,  he  did  not  imagine 
that  the  gift  of  a  man  in  London,  could  justify  him  in 
taking  possession  of  a  distant  country  without  the  oc- 
cupiers' consent.  What  was  ' '  granted ' '  therefore  by 
his  sovereign,  he  purchased  of  the  owners  ;  and  the 
sellers  were  satisfied  with  their  bargain  and  with  him. 
The  experience  of  Pennsylvania  has  shown  that  integ- 
rity is  politic  as  well  as  right.  When  nations  shall 
possess  greater  expansion  of  knowledge,  and  exercise 
greater  purity  of  virtue,  it  will  be  found  that  many  of 
the  principles  which  regulate  international  intercourse, 
are  foolish  as  well  as  vicious  ;  that  whilst   they  disre- 


CHAP.    IV.]  THE  UW  OF  NATIONS.  I07 

gard  the  interests  of  morality  they  sacrifice  their 
own. 

III.  Respecting  the  third  consideration,  that  the  law 
of  nations  is  of  no  force  in  opposition  to  the  moral  law, 
little  needs  to  be  said  here.  It  is  evident  that,  upon 
whatever  foundation  the  law  of  nations  rests,  its  author- 
ity is  subordinate  to  that  of  the  will  of  God.  When, 
therefore,  we  say  that  amongst  civilized  states,  when 
an  island  is  discovered  by  one  state,  other  states  are 
bound  to  refrain,  it  is  not  identical  with  saying  that 
the  discoverer  is  at  liberty  to  keep  possession  by  what- 
ever means.  The  mode  of  asserting  all  rights  is  to  be 
regulated  in  subordination  to  the  moral  law.  Duplic- 
ity, and  fraud,  and  violence,  and  bloodshed,  may  per- 
haps sometimes  be  the  only  means  of  availing  ourselves 
of  the  rights  which  the  law  of  nations  grants ;  but  it 
were  a  confused  species  of  morality  which  should  allow 
the  commivssion  of  all  this,  because  it  is  consistent  with 
the  law  of  nations. 

A  kindred  remark  applies  to  the  obligation  of  treat- 
ies. Treaties  do  not  oblige  us  to  do  what  is  morally 
wrong.  A  treaty  is  a  string  of  engagements  ;  but 
those  engagements  are  no  more  exempt  from  the  juris- 
diction of  the  moral  law,  than  the  promise  of  a  man  to 
assassinate  another.  Does  such  a  promise  morally 
bind  the  ruffian  ?  No  :  and  for  this  reason,  and  for 
no  other,  that  the  performance  is  unlawful.  And  so  it 
is  with  treaties.  Two  nations  enter  into  a  treaty  of 
offensive  and  defensive  alliance.  Subsequently  one  of 
them  engages  in  an  unjust  and  profligate  war.  Does 
the  treaty  morally  bind  the  other  nation  to  abet  the 
profligacy  and  injustice  ?  No  :  if  it  did,  any  man 
might  make  any  action  lawful  to  himself  by  previously 
engaging  to  do  it.  No  doubt  such  a  nation  and  such  a 
ruffian  have  done  wrong  ;  but  their  offence  consisted 
in  making  the  engagement,  not  in  breaking  it.     Even 


108  THE  I,AW  OF  HONOR.  [ESSAY  I. 

if  ordinary  wars  were  defensible,  treaties  of  offensive 
alliance  that  are  unconditional  with  respect  to  time  or 
objects,  can  never  be  justified.  The  state,  however, 
which,  in  the  pursuit  of  a  temporary  policy,  has  been 
weak  enough,  or  vicious  enough  to  make  them,  should 
not  hesitate  to  refuse  fulfilment,  when  the  act  of  fulfil- 
ment is  incompatible  with  the  moral  law.  Such  a  state 
should  decline  to  perform  the  treaty,  and  retire  with 
shame — with  shame,  not  that  it  has  violated  its  engage- 
ments, but  that  it  was  ever  so  vicious  as  to  make  them. 


SECTION  II. 

THE  IvAW  OF  HONOR. 

Authority  of  the  Law  of  Honor — Its  character. 

The  law  of  honor  consists  of  a  set  of  maxims  written 
or  understood,  by  which  persons  of  a  certain  class  agree 
to  regulate,  or  are  expected  to  regulate,  their  conduct. 
It  is  evident  that  the  obligation  of  the  law  of  honor,  as 
such,  results  exclusively  from  the  agreement,  tacit  or 
expressed,  of  the  parties  concerned.  It  binds  them 
because  they  have  agreed  to  be  bound,  and  for  no  other 
reason.  He  who  does  not  choose  to  be  ranked  amongst 
the  subjects  of  the  law  of  honor,  is  under  no  obligation 
to  obey  its  rules.  These  rules  are  precisely  upon  the 
same  footing  as  the  laws  of  free-masonry,  or  the  regu- 
lations of  a  reading-room.  He  who  does  not  choose  to 
subscribe  to  the  room,  or  to  promise  conformity  to 
masonic  laws,  is  under  no  obligation  to  regard  the  rules 
of  either. 

For  which  reason,  it  is  very  remarkable  that  at  the 
commencement  of  his  Moral  Philosophy,  Dr.  Paley 
says,  The  rules  of  life  "  are,  the  law  of  honor,  the  law 


CHAP.  IV.]  THE  LAW  OF  HONOR.  I09 

of  the  land,  and  the  Scriptures."  It  were  strange  in- 
deed, if  that  were  a  rule  of  life  which  every  man  is  at 
liberty  to  disregard  if  he  pleases  ;  and  which,  in  point 
of  fact,  nine  persons  out  of  ten  do  disregard  without 
blame.  Who  would  think  of  taxing  the  writer  of  these 
pages  with  violating  a  "  rule  of  life,"  because  he  pays 
no  attention  to  the  law  of  honor  ?  '  ■  The  Scriptures ' ' 
communicate  the  will  of  God  ;  ' '  the  law  of  the  land  ' ' 
is  enforced  by  that  will  ;  but  where  is  the  sanction  of 
the  law  of  honor  ? — It  is  so  much  the  more  remarkable 
that  this  law  should  have  been  thus  formally  proposed 
as  a  rule  of  life,  because,  in  the  same  work,  it  is  de- 
scribed as  "unauthorized."  How  can  a  set  of  unauth- 
orized maxims  compose  a  rule  of  life?  But  further: 
the  author  says  that  the  law  of  honor  is  a  ' '  capricious 
rule,  which  abhors  deceit,  yet  applauds  the  address  of 
a  successful  intrigue  " — And  further  still  :  "it  allows 
of  fornication,  adultery,  drunkenness,  prodigality, 
duelling,  and  of  revenge  in  the  extreme. ' '  Surely  then 
it  cannot,  with  any  propriety  of  language,  be  called  a 
rule  of  life. 

Placing,  then,  the  obligation  of  the  law  of  honor,  as 
such,  upon  that  which  appears  to  be  its  proper  basis — 
the  duty  to  perform  our  lawful  engagements — it  may 
be  concluded,  that  when  a  man  goes  to  a  gaming-house 
or  a  race-course,  and  loses  his  money  by  betting  or 
playing,  he  is  morally  bound  to  pay  :  not  because  mor- 
ality adjusts  the  rules  of  the  billiard  room  or  the  turf, 
not  becaUvSe  the  law  of  the  land  sanctions  the  stake, 
but  becau.se  the  party  previously  promised  to  pay  it. 
Nor  would  it  affect  this  obligation,  to  allege  that  the 
stake  was  itself  both  illegal  and  immoral.  So  it  was  ; 
but  the  payment  is  not.  The  payment  of  such  a  debt 
involves  no  breach  of  the  moral  law.  The  guilt  con- 
sists not  in  paying  the  money,  but  in  staking  it.  Nev- 
ertheless, there  may  be  prior  claims  upon  a  man's  prop- 


no  The  uw  of  honor.  [essay  i. 

erty  which  he  ought  first  to  pay.  Such  are  those  of 
lawful  creditors.  The  practice  of  paying  debts  of 
honor  with  promptitude,  and  of  delaying  the  payment 
of  other  debts,  argues  confusion  or  depravity  of  princi- 
ple. It  is  not  honor,  in  any  virtuous  and  rational  sense 
of  the  word,  which  induces  men  to  pay  debts  of  honor 
instantly.  Real  honor  would  induce  them  to  pay  their 
lawful  debts  first :  and  indeed  it  may  be  suspected  that 
the  motive  to  the  prompt  payment  of  gaming  debts,  is 
usually  no  other  than  the  desire  to  preserve  a  fair  name 
with  the  world.  Integrity  of  principle  has  often  so 
little  to  do  with  it,  that  this  principle  is  sacrificed  in 
order  to  pay  them. 

With  respect  to  those  maxims  of  the  law  of  honor 
which  require  conduct  that  the  moral  law  forbids,  it  is 
quite  manifest  that  they  are  utterly  indefensible.  ■ '  If 
unauthorized  laws  of  honor  be  allowed  to  create  ex- 
ceptions to  Divine  prohibition,  there  is  an  end  of  all 
morality  as  founded  in  the  will  of  the  Deity,  and  the 
obligation  of  every  duty  may  at  one  time  or  another  be 
discharged."  *  These  observations  apply  to  those 
foolish  maxims  of  honor  which  relate  to  dueling. 
These  maxims  can  never  justify  the  individual  in  dis- 
regarding the  obligations  of  morality.  He  who  acts 
upon  them  acts  wickedly  ;  unless  indeed  he  be  so  little 
informed  of  the  requisitions  of  morality,  that  he  does 
not,  upon  this  subject,  perceive  the  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong.  The  man  of  honor  therefore  should 
pay  a  gambling  debt,  but  he  should  not  send  a  chal- 
lenge or  accept  it.  The  one  is  permitted  by  the  moral 
law,  the  other  is  forbidden. 

Whatever  advantages  may  result  from  the  law  of 
honor,  it  is,  as  a  system,  both  contemptible  and  bad. 
Even  its  advantages  are  of  an  ambiguous  kind  ;  for 
although  it  may  prompt  to  rectitude  of  conduct,  that 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  Hi.  c.  9. 


CHAP.   I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  Ill 

conduct  is  not  founded  upon  rectitude  of  principle.  The 
motive  is  not  so  good  as  the  act.  And  as  to  many  of  its 
particular  rules,  both  positive  and  negative,  they  are  the 
proper  subject  of  reprobation  and  abhorrence.  We  ought 
to  reprobate  and  abhor  a  system  which  enjoins  the  fero- 
cious practice  of  challenges  and  duels,  and  which  allows 
many  of  the  most  flagitious  and  degrading  vices  that 
infest  the  world. 


ESSAY  II. 


PRIVATE  RIGHTS  AND  OBLIGATIONS. 


The  division  which  has  commonly  been  made  of  the  private  obligations 
of  man,  into  those  which  respect  himself,  his  neighbor,  and  his  Creator, 
does  not  appear  to  be  attended  with  any  considerable  advantages.-  These 
several  obligations  are  indeed  so  involved  the  one  with  the  other,  that  there 
are  few  personal  duties  which  are  not  also  in  some  degree  relative,  and 
there  are  no  duties,  either  relative  or  personal,  which  may  not  be  regarded 
as  duties  to  God.  The  suicide's  or  the  drunkard's  vice  injures  his  family  or 
his  friends  :  for  every  offence  against  morality  is  an  injury  to  ourselves,  and 
a  violation  of  the  duties  which  we  owe  to  Him  whose  law  is  the  foundation 
of  morality.  Neglecting,  therefore,  these  minuter  distinctions,  we  observe 
those  only  which  separate  the  private  from  the  political  obligations  of 
mankind. 

CHAPTER  I. 

RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS. 

Factitious  semblances  of  devotion — Religious  conversation— Sabbatical  in- 
stitutions— Non-sanctity  of  days— Of  temporal  employments  :  Travelling: 
Stage-coaches  :  "Sunday-papers  :  "  Amusements— Holydays— Ceremonial 
institutions  and  devotional  formularies — Utility  of  forms — Forms  of  pray- 
er— Extempore  prayer— Scepticism — Motives  of  Scepticism. 

Of  the  two  classes  of  religious  obligations — that  which 
respects  the  exercise  of  piety  towards  God,  and  that 
which  respects  visible  testimonials  of  our  reverence  and 
devotion,  the  business  of  a  work  like  this  is  principally 
with  the  latter.  Yet  at  the  risk  of  being  charged  with 
deviating  from  this  proper  business,  I  would  adventure 
a  few  paragraphs  respecting  devotion  of  mind. 


112  REUG-IOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

That  the  worship  of  our  Father  who  is  in  heaven 
consists,  not  in  assembling  with  others  at  an  appointed 
place  and  hour  ;  not  in  joining  in  the  rituals  of  a  Chris- 
tian church,  or  in  performing  ceremonies,  or  in  par- 
ticipating of  sacraments,*  all  men  will  agree ;  be- 
cause all  men  know  that  these  things  may  be  done 
whilst  the  mind  is  wholly  intent  upon  other  affairs, 
and  even  without  any  belief  in  the  existence  of  God. 
' '  Two  attendances  upon  public  worship  is  a  form  com- 
plied with  by  thousands  who  never  kept  a  Sabbath  in 
their  lives,  "f  Devotion,  it  is  evident,  is  an  operation 
of  the  mind  ;  the  sincere  aspiration  of  a  dependent  and 
grateful  being  to  Him  who  has  all  power  both  in  heaven 
and  in  earth  ;  and  as  the  exercise  of  devotion  is  not 
necessarily  dependent  upon  external  circumstances,  it 
may  be  maintained  in  solitude  or  in  society,  in  the 
place  appropriated  to  worship  or  in  the  field,  in  the 
hour  of  business  or  of  quietude  and  rest.  Even  under 
a  less  spiritual  dispensation  of  old,  a  good  man  ' '  wor- 
shipped, leaning  upon  the  top  of  his  staff." 

Now  it  is  to  be  feared  that  some  persons,  who 
acknowledge  that  devotion  is  a  mental  exercise,  im- 
pose upon  themselves  some  feelings  as  devotional 
which  are  wholly  foreign  to  the  worship  of  .God. 
There  is  a  sort  of  spurious  devotion — feelings,  having 
the  resemblance  of  worship,  but  not  possessing  its 
nature,  and  not  producing  its  effects.  "Devotion," 
says  Blair,  ' '  is  a  powerful  principle,  which  penetrates 
the  soul,  which  purifies  the  affections  from  debasing  at- 
tachments, and  by  a  fixed  and  steady  regard  to  God, 
subdues  every  sinful  passion,  and  forms  the  inclinations 
.  to  piety  and  virtue. ,rJ     To  purify  the  affections  and 

*It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  word,  of  which  the  origin  is  so 
exceptionable,  should  be  used  to  designate  what  are  regarded  as 
solemn  acts  of  religion. 

t  Cowper's  Letters.  %  Sermons,  No.  10. 


CHAP.   I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  113 

subdue  the  passions,  is  a  serious  operation  ;  it  implies 
a  sacrifice  of  inclination  ;  a  subjugation  of  the  will. 
This  mental  operation  many  persons  are  not  willing  to 
undergo  ;  and  it  is  not  therefore  wonderful  that  some 
persons  are  willing  to  satisfy  themselves  with  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  species  of  devotion  that  shall  be  attained  at 
less  cost. 

A  person  goes  to  an  oratorio  of  sacred  music.  The 
majestic  flow  of  harmony,  the  exalted  subjects  of  the 
hymns  or  anthems,  the  full  and  rapt  assembly,  excite, 
and  warm,  and  agitate  his  mind  ;  sympathy  becomes 
powerful  ;  he  feels  the  stirring  of  unwonted  emotions  ; 
weeps,  perhaps,  or  exults  ;  and  when  he  leaves  the  as- 
sembly, persuades  himself  that  he  has  been  worshipping 
and  glorifying  God. 

There  are  some  preachers  with  whom  it  appears  to 
be  an  object  of  much  solicitude,  to  excite  the  hearer  to 
a  warm  and  impassioned  state  of  feeling.  By  ardent 
declamation  or  passionate  displays  of  the  hopes  and 
terrors  of  religion,  they  arouse  and  alarm  his  imagina- 
tion. The  hearer,  who  desires  perhaps  to  experience 
the  ardors  of  religion,  cultivates  the  glowing  sensa- 
tions, abandons  his  mind  to  the  impulse  of  feeling,  and 
at  length  goes  home  in  complacency  with  his  religious 
sensibility,  and  glads  himself  with  having  felt  the  fer- 
vors of  devotion. 

Kindred  illusion  may  be  the  result  of  calmer  causes. 
The  lofty  and  silent  aisle  of  an  ancient  cathedral,  the 
venerable  ruins  of  some  once  honored  abbey,  the 
boundless  expanse  of  the  heaven  of  stars,  the  calm  im- 
mensity of  the  still  ocean,  or  the  majesty  and  terror  of 
a  tempest,  sometimes  suffuses  the  mind  with  a  sort  of 
reverence  and  awe  ;  a  sort  of  "  philosophic  transport," 
which  a  person  would  willingly  hope  is  devotion  of  the 
heart. 

It  might  be  sufficient  to  assure  us  of  the  spuriousness 


n4  REUGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

of  these  semblances  of  religious  feeling,  to  consider 
that  emotions  very  similar  in  their  nature  are  often 
excited  by  subjects  which  have  no  connection  with 
religion.  I  know  not  whether  the  affecting  scenes  of 
the  drama  and  of  fictitious*  story,  want  much  but 
association  with  ideas  of  religion  to  make  them  as  de- 
votional as  those  which  have  been  noticed  ;  and  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  feelings  of  him  who  attends  an 
oratorio  were  excited  by  a  military  band,  he  would 
think  not  of  the  Deity  or  of  heaven,  but  of  armies  and 
conquests.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that  persons 
who  have  habitually  little  pretension  to  religion,  are 
perhaps  as  capable  of  this  factitious  devotion  as  those 
in  whom  religion  is  constantly  influential ;  and  surely 
it  is  not  to  be  imagined,  that  those  who  rarely  direct 
reverend  thoughts  to  their  Creator,  can  suddenly  adore 
Him  for  an  hour  and  then  forget  him  again,  until  some 
new  excitement  again  arouses  their  raptures,  to  be  again 
forgotten. 

To  religious  feelings  as  to  other  things,  the  truth  ap- 
plies— "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  If 
these  feelings  do  not  tend  to  c  !  purify  the  affections 
from  debasing  attachments;"  if  they  do  not  tend  to 

form  the  inclinations  to  piety  and  virtue,"  they  cer- 
tainly are  not  devotional.  Upon  him  whose  mind  is  really 
prostrated  in  the  presence  of  his  God,  the  legitimate 
effect  is,  that  he  should  be  impressed  with  a  more  sen- 
sible consciousness  of  the  Divine  presence ;  that  he 
should  deviate  with  less  facility  from  the  path  of  duty; 
that  his  desires  and  thoughts  should  be  reduced  to 
Christian  subjugation  ;  that  he  should  feel  an  influen- 
tial addition  to  his  dispositions  to  goodness ;  and  that 
his  affections  should  be  expanded  towards  his  fellow 
men.  He  who  rises  from  the  sensibilities  of  seeming 
devotion,  and  finds,  that  effects  such  as  these  are  not 
produced  in  his  mind,  may  rest  assured  that,  in  what- 


CHAP.  I.]  RELIGIOUS    OBLIGATIONS.  115 

ever  he  has  been  employed,  it  has  not  been  in  the  pure 
worship  of  that  God  who  is  a  spirit.  To  the  real  pros- 
tration of  the  soul  in  the  Divine  presence,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  the  mind  should  be  still  : — "  Be  still  and 
know  that  I  am  God."  Such  devotion  is  sufficient  for 
the  whole  mind  ;  it  needs  not — perhaps  in  its  purest 
state  it  admits  not — the  intrusion  of  external  things. 
And  when  the  soul  is  thus  permitted  to  enter  as  it 
were  into  the  sanctuary  of  God  ;  when  it  is  humble  in 
his  presence  ;  when  all  its  desires  are  involved  in  the 
one  desire  of  devotedness  to  him  ;  then  is  the  hour  of 
acceptable  worship — then  the  petition  of  the  soul  is 
prayer — then  is  its  gratitude  thanksgiving — then  is  its 
oblation  praise. 

That  such  devotion,  when  such  is  attainable,  will 
have  a  powerful  tendency  to  produce  obedience  to  the 
moral  law,  may  justly  be  expected  :  and  here  indeed 
is  the  true  connection  of  the  subject  of  these  remarks 
with  the  general  object  of  the  present  essays.  With- 
out real  and  efficient  piety  of  mind,  we  are  not  to  ex- 
pect a  consistent  observance  of  the  moral  law.  That 
law  requires,  sometimes,  sacrifices  of  inclination  and  of 
interest,  and  a  general  subjugation  of  the  passions, 
which  religion,  and  religion  only,  can  capacitate  and 
induce  us  to  make.  I  recommend  not  enthusiasm  or 
fanaticism,  but  that  sincere  and  reverent  application  of 
the  soul  to  its  Creator,  which  alone  is  likely  to  give 
either  distinctness  to  our  perceptions  of  his  will,  or 
efficiency  to  our  motives  to  fulfill  it. 


A  few  sentences  will  be  indulged  to  me  here  respect- 
ing religious  conversation.  I  believe  both  that  the 
proposition  is  true,  and  that  it  is  expedient  to  set  it 
down — that  religious  conversation  is  one  of  the  banes 
of  the  religious  world.  There  are  many  who  are  really 
attached  to  religion,  and  who  sometimes  feel  its  power, 


Il6  REUGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

but  who  allow  their  better  feelings  to  evaporate  in  an 
ebullition  of  words.  They  forget  how  much  relig- 
ion is  an  affair  of  the  mind  and  how  little  of  the 
tongue  :  they  forget  how  possible  it  is  to  live  under  its 
power  without  talking  of  it  to  their  friends  ;  and  some, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  may  forget  how  possible  it  is  to  talk 
without  feeling  its  influence.  Not  that  the  good  man's 
piety  is  to  live  in  his  breast  like  an  anchorite  in  his 
cell.  The  evil  does  not  consist  in  speaking  of  religion, 
but  in  speaking  too  much  ;  not  in  manifesting  our 
allegiance  to  God  ;  not  in  encouraging  by  exhortation, 
and  amending  by  our  advice  ;  not  in  placing  the  light 
upon  a  candlestick — but  in  making  religion  a  common 
topic  of  discourse.  Of  all  species  of  well  intended  re- 
ligious conversation,  that  perhaps  is  the  most  excep- 
tionable which  consists  in  narrating  our  own  religious 
feelings.  Many  thus  intrude  upon  that  religious 
quietude  which  is  peculiarly  favorable  to  the  Christian 
character.  The  habit  of  communicating  "ex- 
periences ' '  I  believe  is  to  be  very  prejudicial  to  the  mind. 
It  may  sometimes  be  right  to  do  this  :  in  the  great 
majority  of  instances  I  believe  it  is  not  beneficial,  and 
not  right.  Men  thus  dissipate  religious  impressions, 
and  therefore  diminish  their  effects.  Such  observation 
as  I  have  been  enabled  to  make,  has  sufficed  to  con- 
vince me  that,  where  the  religious  character  is  solid, 
there  is  but  little  religious  talk  ;  and  that,  where  there 
is  much  talk,  the  religious  character  is  superficial,  and, 
like  other  superficial  things,  is  easily  destroyed.  And 
if  these  be  the  attendants,  and  in  part  the  consequences 
of  general  religious  conversation,  how  peculiarly 
dangerous  must  that  conversation  be,  which  exposes 
those  impressions  that  perhaps  were  designed  exclu- 
sively for  ourselves,  and  the  use  of  which  may  be 
frustrated  by  communicating  them  to  others.  Our 
solicitude  should  be  directed  to  the  invigoration  of  the 


CHAP.    I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  1 17 

religious  character  in  our  own  minds  ;  and  we  should 
be  anxious  that  the  plant  of  piety,  if  it  had  fewer 
branches  might  have  a  deeper  root. 

SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

' '  Not  forsaking  the  assembling  of  ourselves  together, 
as  the  manner  of  some  is."*  The  Divinely  authorized 
institution  of  Moses  respecting  a  weekly  Sabbath,  and 
the  practice  of  the  first  teachers  of  Christianity,  con- 
stitute a  sufficient  recommendation  to  set  apart  certain 
times  for  the  exercise  of  public  worship,  even  were 
there  no  injunctions  such  as  that  which  is  placed  at  the 
head  of  this  paragraph.  It  is,  besides,  manifestly 
proper,  that  beings  who  are  dependent  upon  God  for 
all  things,  and  especially  for  their  hopes  of  immortality, 
should  devote  a  portion  of  their  time  to  the  expression 
of  their  gratitude,  and  submission,  and  reverence. 
Community  of  dependence  and  of  hope  dictates  the 
propriety  of  united  worship  ;  and  worship  to  be  united, 
must  be  performed  at  times  previously  fixed. 

From  the  duty  of  observing  the  Hebrew  Sabbath, 
we  are  sufficiently  exempted  by  the  fact,  that  it  was 
actually  not  observed  by  the  apostles  of  Christ.  The 
early  Christians  met,  not  on  the  last  day  of  the  week, 
but  on  the  first.  Whatever  reason  may  be  assigned 
as  a  motive  for  this  rejection  of  the  ancient  Sabbath,  I 
think  it  will  tend  to  discountenance  the  observance  of 
any  day,  as  such :  for  if  that  day  did  not  possess  per- 
petual sanctity,  what  day  does  possess  it? 

And  with  respect  to  the  general  tenor  of  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures  as  to  the  sanctity  of  particular  days,  it  is 
I  think  manifestly  adverse  to  the  opinion  that  one  day 
is  obligatory  rather  than  another.  ■ '  Let  no  man 
therefore  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  respect  of 
an  holyday,  or  of  the  new-moon  or  of  the  Sabbath- 
*Heb.  x.  25. 


Il8  REUGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

days  ;  which  are  a  shadow  of  things  to  come  ;  but  the 
body  is  of  Christ."*  Although  this  "Sabbath-day" 
was  that  of  the  Jews,  yet  the  passage  indicates  the 
writer's  sentiments,  generally,  respecting  the  sanctity 
of  specific  days  :  he  classes  them  with  matters  which 
all  agree  to  be  unimportant ; — with  meats,  and  drinks, 
and  new-moons ;  and  pronounces  them  to  be  alike 
"shadows."  That  strong  passage  addressed  to  the 
Christians  of  Galatia  is  of  the  same  import :  ' '  How 
turn  ye  again  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements 
whereunto  ye  desire  again  to  be  in  bondage  ?  Ye  ob- 
serve days,  and  months,  and  times,  and  years.  I  am 
afraid  of  you,  lest  I  have  bestowed  upon  you  labor  in 
vain."f  That  which,  in  writing  to  the  Christians  of 
Colosse,  the  apostle  called  "shadows,"  he  now,  in 
writing  to  those  of  Galatia,  calls  "  beggarly  elements. " 
The  obvious  tendency  is  to  discredit  the  observance  of 
particular  times  ;  and  if  he  designed  to  except  the  first 
day  of  the  week,  it  is  not  probable  that  he  would  have 
failed  to  except  it. 

Nevertheless,  the  question  whether  we  are  obliged  to 
observe  the  first  day  of  the  week  because  it  is  the  first, 
is  one  point — whether  we  ought  to  devote  it  to  religious 
exercises,  seeing  that  it  is  actually  set  apart  for  the  pur- 
pose, is  another.  The  early  Christians  met  on  that 
day,  and  their  example  has  been  followed  in  succeed- 
ing times ;  but  if  for  any  sufficient  reason,  (and  such 
reasons,  however  unlikely  to  arise,  are  yet  conceivable,) 
the  Christian-  world  should  fix  upon  another  day  of  the 
week  instead  of  the  first,  I  perceive  no  grounds  upon 
which  the  arrangement  could  be  objected  to.  As  there 
is  no  sanctity  in  any  day,  and  no  obligation  to  appro- 
priate one  day  rather  than  another,  that  which  is  actually 
fixed  upon  is  the  best  and  the  right  one.     Bearing  in 

*  Col.  ii.  16,  17.  In  Rom.  xiv.  5,  6,  there  is  a  parallel  passage. 
fGal.  iv.  9,  10,  11. 


CHAP.  I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  119 

mind,  then,  that  it  is  right  to  devote  some  portion  of 
our  time  to  religious  exercises,  and  that  no  objection 
exists  to  the  day  which  is  actually  appropriated,  the 
duty  seems  very  obvious — so  to  employ  it. 

Cessation  from  labor  on  the  first  day  of  the  week, 
is  nowhere  enjoined  in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  Upon 
this  subject,  the  principles  on  which  a  person  should 
regulate  his  conduct  appear  to  be  these  :  He  should 
reflect  that  the  whole  of  the  day  is  not  too  large  a  por- . 
tion  of  our  time  to  devote  to  public  worship,  to  religious 
recollectedness,  and  sedateness  of  mind  ;  and  therefore 
that  occupations  which  would  interfere  with  this  se- 
dateness and  recollectedness,  or  with  public  worship, 
ought  to  be  foreborne.  Even  if  he  supposed  that  the 
devoting  of  the  whole  of  the  day  was  not  necessary  for 
himself,  he  should  reflect,  that  since  a  considerable 
part  of  mankind  are  obliged,  from  various  causes,  to 
attend  to  matters  unconnected  with  religion  during  a 
part  of  the  day,  and  that  one  set  attends  to  them  dur- 
ing one  part  and  another  during  another  —the  whole  of 
the  day  is  necessary  for  the  community,  even  though 
it  were  not  for  each  individual :  and  if  every  individual 
should  attend  to  his  ordinary  affairs  during  that  por- 
tion of  the  day  which  he  deemed  superabundant,  the 
consequence  might  soon  be  that  the  day  would  not  be 
devoted  to  religion  at  all. 

These  views  will  enable  the  reader  to  judge  in  what 
manner  we  should  decide  questions  respecting  attention 
to  temporal  affairs  on  particular  occasions.  The  day 
is  not  sacred,  therefore  business  is  not  necessarily  sin- 
ful ;  the  day  ought  to  be  devoted  to  religion,  therefore 
other  concerns  which  are  not  necessary  are  generally, 
wrong.  The  remonstrance,  "Which  of  you  shall 
have  an  ass,  or  an  ox  fallen  into  a  pit,  and  will  not 
straightway  pull  him  out  on  the  Sabbath-day  ?  ' '  suffi- 
ciently indicates  that,  when  reasonable  calls  are  made 


120  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

upon  us,  we  are  at  liberty  to  attend  to  them.  Of  the 
reasonableness  of  these  calls  every  man  must  endeavor 
to  judge  for  himself.  A  tradesman  ought,  as  a  general 
rule,  to  refuse  to  buy  or  sell  goods.  If  I  sold  clothing, 
I  would  furnish  a  surtout  to  a  man  who  was  suddenly 
summoned  on  a  journey,  but  not  to  a  man  who  could 
call  the  next  morning.  Were  I  a  builder,  I  would 
prop  a  falling  wall,  but  not  proceed  in  the  erection  of 
a  house.  Were  I  a  lawyer,  I  would  deliver  an  opinion 
to  an  applicant  to  whom  the  delay  of  a  day  would  be  a 
serious  injury,  but  not  to  save  him  the  expense  of  an 
extra  night's  lodging  by  waiting.  The  medical  pro- 
fession, and  those  who  sell  medicine,  are  differently 
situated,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  both,  and 
especially  the  latter,  might  devote  a  smaller  portion  of 
the  day  to  their  secular  employments,  if  earnestness  in 
religious  concerns  were  as  great  as  the  opportunities  to 
attend  to  them.  Some  physicians  in  extensive  prac- 
tice, attend  almost  as  regularly  on  public  worship  as 
any  of  their  neighbors.  Excursions  of  pleasure  on  this 
day  are  rarely  defensible  ;  they  do  not  comport  with 
the  purposes  to  which  the  day  is  appropriated.  To  at- 
tempt specific  rules  upon  such  a  subject  were,  however, 
vain.  Not  every  thing  which  partakes  of  relaxation 
is  unallowable.  A  walk  in  the  country  may  be  proper 
and  right,  when  a  party  to  a  watering  place  would  be 
improper  and  wrong.*  There  will  be  little  difficulty 
in  determining  what  it  is  allowable  to  do  and  what  it  is 
not,  if  the  enquiry  be  not,  how  much  secularity  does 

*  The  scrupulousness  of  the  ''Puritans"  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  I.,  and  the  laxity  of  L,aud,  whose  ordinances  enjoined 
sports  after  the  hours  of  public  worship,  were  both  really, 
though  perhaps  not  equally,  improper.  The  Puritans  attached 
sanctity  to  the  day;  and  Laud  did  not  consider,  or  did  not  re- 
gard the  consideration,  that  his  sports  would  not  only  discredit 
the  notion  of  sanctity,  but  preclude  that  recollected ness  of  mind 
which  ought  to  be  maintained  throughout  the  whole  day. 


CHAP.    I.]  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  121 

religion  allow?  but,  how  much  can  I,  without  a  neglect 
of  duty,  avoid? 

The  habit  which  obtains  with  many  persons  of  travel- 
ling on  this  day,  is  peculiarly  indefensible  ;  because  it 
not  only  keeps  the  traveller  from  his  church  or  meet- 
ing, but  keeps  away  his  servants,  or  the  postmen  on  the 
road,  and  ostlers,  and  cooks,  and  waiters.  All  these 
may  be  detained  from  public  worship  by  one  man's 
journey  of  fifty  miles.  Such  a  man  incurs  some  re- 
sponsibility. The  plea  of  ' '  saving  time  ' '  is  not  re- 
mote from  irreverence  ;  for  if  it  has  any  meaning  it  is 
this,  that  our  time  is  of  more  value  when  employed  in 
business,  than  when  employed  in  the  worship  of  God. 
It  is  discreditable  to  this  country  that  the  number  of 
carriages  which  traverse  it  on  this  day  is  so  great.  The 
evil  may  rightly  and  perhaps  easily  be  regulated  by  the 
Legislature.  You  talk  of  difficulties  : — you  would 
have  talked  of  many  more,  if  it  were  now,  for  the  first 
time,  proposed  to  shut  up  the  general  post-office  one 
day  in  seven.  We  should  have  heard  of  parents  dying 
before  their  children  could  hear  of  their  danger  :  of 
bills  dishonored  and  merchants  discredited  for  want  of  a 
post ;  and  of  a  multitude  of  other  inconveniences  which 
busy  anticipation  would  have  discovered.  Yet  the 
general  post-office  is  shut ;  and  where  is  the  evil  ? 

A  similar  regulation  would  be  desirable  with  respect 
to  ■  •  Sunday  Papers. ' '  The  ordinary  contents  of  a 
newspaper  are  little  accordant  with  religious  sobriety 
and  abstraction  from  the  world.  News  of  armies,  and 
of  funds  and  markets,  of  political  contests  and  party 
animosities,  of  robberies  and  trials,  of  sporting,  and 
boxing,  and  the  stage  ;  with  merriment,  and  scandal, 
and  advertisements — are  sufficiently  ill  adapted  to  the 
cultivation  of  religiousness  of  mind. 

Private,  and  especially  public  amusements  on  this 
day,  are  clearly  wrong.      It  is  remarkable  that  they 


122  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  [KSSAY  II. 

appear  least  willing  to  dispense  with  their  amusements 
on  this  day,  who  pursue  them  on  every  other  ;  and  the 
observation  affords  one  illustration  amongst  the  many 
of  the  pitiable  effects  of  what  is  called — though  it  is 
only  called — a  life  of  pleasure. 

Upon  every  kind  and  mode  of  negligence  respecting 
these  religious  obligations,  the  question  is  not  simply, 
whether  the  individual  himself  sustains  moral  injury, 
but  also  whether  he  occasions  injury  to  those  around 
him.  The  example  is  mischievous.  Even  supposing 
that  a  man  may  feel  devotion  in  his  counting-house, 
or  at  the  tavern,  or  over  a  pack  of  cards,  his  neighbors 
who  know  where  he  is,  or  his  family  who  see  what  he  is 
doing,  are  encouraged  to  follow  his  example,  with- 
out any  idea  of  carrying  their  religion  with  them. 
' '  My  neighbor  amuses  himself — my  father  attends  to 
his  ledgers — and  why  may  not  I?" — So  that,  if  such 
things  were  not  intrinsically  unlawful,  they  would  be 
wrong  because  they  are  inexpedient.  Some  things 
might  be  done  without  blame  by  the  lone  tenant  of  a 
wild,  which  involve  positive  guilt  in  a  man  in  society. 

Holydays,such  as  those  which  are  distinguished  by  the 
names  of  Christmas-day  and  Good -Friday,  possess  no 
sanction  from  Scripture  :  they  are  of  human  institution. 
If  any  religious  community  thinks  it  is  desirable  to  de- 
vote more  than  fifty-two  days  in  the  year  to  the  purposes 
of  religion,  it  is  unquestionably  right  that  they  should 
devote  them ;  and  it  is  amongst  the  good  institutions 
of  several  Christian  communities,  that  they  do  weekly 
appropriate  some  additional  hours  to  these  purposes. 
The  observance  of  the  days  in  question  is  however  of 
another  kind  ;  here  the  observance  refers  to  the  day  as 
such  ;  and  I.  know  not  how  the  censure  can  be  avoided 
which  was  directed  to  those  Galatians  who  ' '  observed 
days,  and  months,  and  times,  and  years."  Whatever 
may  be  the  sentiments  of  enlightened  men,  those  who 


CHAP  I.]  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  123 

are  not  enlightened  are  likely  to  regard  such  days  as 
sacred  in  themselves.  ■  This  is  turning  to  beggarly  ele- 
ments :  this  partakes  of  the  character  of  superstition ; 
and  superstition  of  every  kind  and  in  every  degree,  is 
incongruous  with  that  ' '  glorious  liberty ' '  which 
Christianity  describes,  and  to  which  it  would  con- 
duct us. 

CEREMONIAL  INSTITUTIONS  AND  DEVOTIONAL 
FORMULARIES. 

If  God  has  made  known  his  will  that  any  given  cere- 
mony shall  be  performed  in  his  church,  that  expression 
is  sufficient ;  we  do  not  then  enquire  into  the  reasonable- 
ness of  the  ceremony,  nor  into  its  utility.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  act  of  sprinkling  water  in  an  infant's 
face,  or  of  immersing  the  person  of  an  adult,  which 
recommends  it  to  the  view  of  reason,  any  more  that 
tw7enty  other  acts  which  might  be  performed :  yet,  if 
it  be  clear  that  such  an  act  is  required  by  the  Divine 
will,  all  further  controversy  is  at  an  end.  It  is  not 
the  business,  any  more  than  it  is  the  desire,  of  the 
writer  here  to  enquire  whether  the  Deity  has  thus  ex- 
pressed his  will  respecting  any  of  the  rites  which  are 
adopted  in  some  Christian  churches ;  yet  the  reader 
should  carefully  bear  in  mind  what  it  is  that  consti- 
tutes the  obligation  of  a  rite  or  ceremony,  and  what 
does  not.  Setting  utility  aside,  the  obligation  must 
be  constituted  by  an  expression  of  the  Divine  will : 
and  he  who  enquires  into  the  obligation  of  these  things, 
should  reflect  that  they  acquire  a  sort  of  adventitious 
sanctity  from  the  power  of  association.  Being  con- 
nected from  early  life  with  his  ideas  of  religion,  he 
learns  to  attach  to  them  the  authority  which  he  at- 
taches to  religion  itself  ;  and  thus  perhaps  he  scarcely 
knows,  because  he  does  not  enquire,  whether  a  given 


124  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

institution  is  founded  upon  the  law  of  God,  or  intro- 
duced by  the  authority  of  men.      *    ■ 

Of  some  ceremonies  or  rites,  and  of  almost  all  form- 
ularies and  other  appendages  of  public  worship,  it  is 
acknowledged  that  they  possess  no  proper  sanction 
from  the  will  of  God.  Supposing  the  written  expres- 
sion of  that  will  to  contain  nothing  by  which  we  can 
judge  either  of  their  propriety  or  impropriety,  the 
standard  to  which  they  are  to  be  referred  is  that  of 
utility  alone. 

Now,  it  is  highly  probable  that  benefits  result  from 
these  adjuncts  of  religion,  because,  in  the  present  state 
of  mankind,  it  may  be  expected  that  some  persons  are 
impressed  with  useful  sentiments  respecting  religion 
through  the  intervention  of  these  adjuncts,  who  might 
otherwise  scarcely  regard  religion  at  all :  it  is  probable 
that  many  are  induced  to  attend  upon  public  worship 
by  the  attraction  of  its  appendages,  who  would  other- 
wise stay  away.  Simply  to  be  present  at  the  font  or 
the  communion  table,  may  be  a  means  of  inducing 
many  religious  considerations  into  the  mind.  And  as 
to  those  who  are  attracted  to  public  worship  by  its  ac- 
companiments, they  may  at  least  be  in  the  way  of 
religious  benefit.  One  goes  to  hear  the  singing,  and 
one  the  organ,  and  one  to  see  the  paintings  or  the 
architecture  ;  a  still  larger  number  go  because  they  are 
sure  to  find  some  occupation  for  their  thoughts ;  some 
prayers  or  other  offices  of  devotion,  something  to  hear, 
and  see,  and  do.  ! '  The  transitions  from  one  office  of 
devotion  to  another,  from  confession  to  prayer,  from 
prayer  to  thanksgiving,  from  thanksgiving  to  '  hearing 
of  the  word,'  are  contrived,  like  scenes  in  the  drama, 
to  supply  the  mind  with  a  succession  of  diversified  en- 
gagements. ' '  *  These  diversified  engagements,  I  say, 
attract  some  who  would  not  otherwise  attend  ;  and  it  is 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  5,  c.  5. 


CHAP.  I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  125 

better  that  they  should  go  from  imperfect  motives  than 
that  they  should  not  go  at  all.  It  must,  however,  be 
confessed,  that  the  groundwork  of  this  species  of  utility 
is  similar  to  that  which  has  been  urged  in  favor  of  the 
use  of  images  by  the  Romish  Church.  "Idols,"  say 
they,  "  are  laymen's  books  ;  and  a  great  mea?is  to  stir 
up  pious  thoughts  and  devotion  in  the  learnedest."* 
Indeed,  if  it  is  once  admitted  that  the  prospect  of  ad- 
vantage is  a  sufficient  reason  for  introducing  objects 
addressed  to  the  senses  into  the  public  offices  of  wor- 
ship, it  is  not  easy  to  define  where  we  shall  stop.  If 
we  may  have  magnificent  architecture,  and  music,  and 
chanting,  and  paintings,  why  may  we  not  have  the  yet 
more  imposing  pomp  of  the  Catholic  worship  ?  I  do 
not  say  that  this  pomp  is  useful  and  right,  but  that  the 
pri?iciple  on  which  such  things  are  introduced  into  the 
worship  of  God  furnishes  no  satisfactory  means  of  de- 
ciding what  amount  of  external  observances  should  be 
introduced,  and  what  should  not.  If  figures  on  canvas 
are  lawful  because  they  are  useful,  why  is  not  a  figure 
in  marble  or  in  wood  ?  Why  may  we  not  have  images 
by  way  of  laymen's  books,  and  of  stirring  up  pious 
thoughts  and  devotion  ? 

But  it  is  to  be  apprehended  of  such  things,  or  of 
M  contrivances  like  scenes  in  a  drama,"  that  they  have 
much  less  tendency  to  promote  devotion  than  some 
men  may  suppose.  No  doubt  they  may  possess  an 
imposing  effect,  they  may  powerfully  interest  and 
affect  the  imagination  ;  but  does  not  this  partake  too 
much  of  that  factitious  devotion  of  which  we  speak  ? 
Is  it  certain  that  such  things  have  much  tendency  to 
purify  the  mind,  and  raise  up  within  it  a  power  that 
shall  efficiently  resist  temptation  ? 

Even  if  some  benefits  do  result  from  the  employment 
of  these  appendages  of  worship,  they  are  not  without 
their  dangers  and  their  evils.  With  respect  to  those 
*  Milton's  Prose  Works,  v,  4,  p.  266. 


126  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY   II. 

which  are  addressed  to  the  senses,  whether  to  the  eye 
or  ear,  there  is  obviously  a  danger  that  like  other  sen- 
sible objects  they  will  withdraw  the  mind  from  its 
proper  business — the  cultivation  of  pure  religious 
affections  towards  God.  And  respecting  the  formu- 
laries of  devotion,  it  has  been  said  by  a  writer,  whom 
none  will  suspect  of  overstating  their  evils,  "The 
arrogant  man,  as  if  like  the  dervise  in  the  Persian 
fable,  he  had  shot  his  soul  into  the  character  he  as- 
sumes, repeats,  with  complete  self -application,  Lord, 
I  am  not  high-minded :  the  trifler  says,  /  hate  vain 
thoughts  :  the  irreligious,  Lord,  how  I  love  thy  law  :  he 
who  seldom  prays  at  all,  confidently  repeats,  All  the 
day  lo7ig  I  am  occupied  in  thy  statutes*  These  are  not 
light  considerations  :  here  is  insincerity  and  untruths  ; 
and  insincerity  and  untruths,  it  should  be  remembered, 
in  the  place  and  at  the  time  when  we  profess  to  be 
humbled  in  the  presence  of  God.  The  evils  too  are 
inseparable  from  the  system.  Wherever  preconcerted 
formularies  are  introduced,  there  will  always  be  some 
persons  who  join  in  the  use  of  them  without  propriety, 
or  sincerity  or  decorum.  Nor  are  the  evils  much  ex- 
tenuated by  the  hope  which  has  been  suggested,  that 
1 '  the  holy  vehicle  of  their  hypocrisy  may  be  made  that 
of  their  conversion."  It  is  very  Christian-like  to  in- 
dulge this  hope,  though  I  fear  it  is  not  very  reason- 
able. Hypocrisy  is  itself  an  offence  against  God  ;  and 
it  can  scarcely  be  expected  that  anything  so  imme- 
diately connected  with  the  offence  will  often  effect  such 
an  end. 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  case  of  those  who  use  these 
forms  in  a  manner  positively  hypocritical,  that  the 
greatest  evil  and  danger  consists  :  ' '  There  is  a  kind  of 
mechanical  memory  in  the  tongue,  which  runs  over  the 
form  without  any  aid  of  the  understanding,  without 
*  More's  Moral  Sketches,  3d  Ed.  p.  429. 


CHAP.   I.]  REUGIOUS  OBUGAXKXNS.  '.        J       127 


any  concurrence  of  the  will,  without  any  consent  of  the 
affections ;  for  do  we  not  sometimes  implore  God  to 
hear  a  prayer  to  which  we  are  ourselves  not  attend- 
ing ?  ■ '  *  We  have  sufficient  reason  for  knowing  that 
to  draw  nigh  to  God  with  our  lips  whilst  our  hearts  are 
far  from  him,  is  a  serious  offence  in  his  sight ;  and 
when  it  is  considered  how  powerful  is  the  tendency  of 
oft-repeated  words  to  lose  their  practical  connection 
with  feelings  and  ideas,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  this  class 
of  evils,  resulting  from  the  use  of  forms,  is  of  very  wide 
extent.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten,  that  as  even  religious 
persons  sometimes  employ  ' '  the  form  without  any  aid 
of  the  understanding, ' '  so  others  are  in  danger  of  sub- 
stituting the  form  for  the  reality,  and  of  imagining 
that,  if  they  are  exemplary  in  the  observance  of  the 
externals  of  devotion,  the  work  of  religion  is  done. 

Such  circumstances  may  reasonably  make  us  hesitate 
in  deciding  the  question  of  the  propriety  of  these  ex- 
ternal things,  as  a  question  of  expediency .  They  may 
reasonably  make  us  do  more  than  this  ;  for  does  Chris- 
tianity allow  us  to  invent  a  system,  of  which  some  of 
the  consequences  are  so  bad,  for  the  sake  of  a  bene- 
ficial end? 

Forms  of  prayer  have  been  supposed  to  rest  on  an 
authority  somewhat  more  definite  than  that  of  other 
religious  forms.  "  The  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  precedent, 
as  well  as  a  pattern,  for  forms  of  prayer.  Our  Lord 
appears,  if  not  to  have  prescribed,  at  least  to  have 
authorized  the  use  of  fixed  forms,  when  he  complied 
with  the  request  of  the  disciple  who  said  unto  him, 
1  Lord  teach  us  to  pray,  as  John  also  taught  his  disci- 
ples.' "f  If  we  turn  to  Matt,  vi.,  where  the  fullest 
account  is  given  of  the  subject,  we  are,  I  think,  pre- 
sented with  a  different  view.     Our  Saviour,  who  had 

*  More's  Moral  Sketches,  3d  Ed.  p.  327.  . 
f  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  p.  3.  b.  5.  c.  5. 


128  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY  II. 

been  instituting  his  more  perfect  laws  in  place  of  the 
doctrines  which  had  been  taught  of  old  time,  proceeded 
to  the  prevalent  mode  of  giving  alms,  of  praying,  of 
fasting,  and  of  laying  up  wealth.  He  first  describes 
these  modes,  and  then  directs  in  what  manner  Chris- 
tians ought  to  give  alms,  and  pray  and  fast.  Now,  if 
it  be  contended  that  he  requires  us  to  employ  that  par- 
ticular form  of  prayer  which  he  then  dictated,  it  must 
also  be  contended  that  he  requires  us  to  adopt  that  par- 
ticular mode  of  giving  money  which  he  described,  and 
those  particular  actions,  when  fasting,  which  he  men- 
tions. If  we  are  obliged  to  use  the  form  of  prayer,  we 
are  obliged  to  give  money  in  secret ;  and  when  we  fast 
to  put  oil  upon  our  heads.  If  these  particular  modes 
were  not  enjoined,  neither  is  the  form  of  prayer  ;  and 
the  Scriptures  contain  no  indication  that  this  form  was 
ever  used  at  all,  either  by  the  apostles  or  their  con- 
verts. But  if  the  argument  only  asserts  that  fixed 
forms  are  "  authorized  "  by  the  language  of  Christ,  the 
question  becomes  a  question  merely  of  expediency. 
Supposing  that  they  are  authorized,  they  are  to  be  em- 
ployed only  if  they  are  useful.  Even  in  this  view,  it 
may  be  remarked  that  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose, 
from  the  Christian  Scriptures,  that  either  Christ  him- 
self or  his  apostles  ever  used  a  fixed  form.  If  he  had 
designed  to  authorize,  and  therefore  to  recommend 
their  adoption,  is  it  not  probable  that  some  indications 
of  their  having  been  employed  wTould  be  presented? 
But  instead  of  this,  we  find  that  every  prayer  which  is 
recorded  ill  the  volume  was  delivered  extempore,  upon 
the  then  occasion,  and  arising  out  of  the  then  existing 
circumstances. 

Yet  after  all,  the  important  question  is  not  between 
preconcerted  and  extempore  prayer  as  such, but  whether 
any  prayer  is  proper  and  right  but  that  which  is  elic- 
ited by  the  influence  of  the  Divine  power.     The  en- 


CHAP.   I.]  REUG10US  OBLIGATIONS.  I29 

quiry  into  this  solemn  subject  would  lead  us  too  wide 
from  our  general  business.  The  truth,  however,  that 
"  we  know  not  what  to  pray  for  as  we  ought,"  is  as 
truly  applicable  to  extempore  as  to  formal  prayer. 
Words  merely  do  not  constitute  prayer,  whether  they 
be  prepared  beforehand,  or  conceived  at  the  moment 
they  are  addressed.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  he 
only  offers  perfectly  acceptable  supplications,  who 
offers  them  M  according  to  the  will  of  God,"  and  "  of 
the  ability  which  God  giveth  :" — and  if  such  be  indeed 
the  truth,  it  is  scarcely  compatible  either  with  a  pre- 
scribed form  of  words,  or  with  extempore  prayer  at 
prescribed  times. — Yet  if  any  Christian,  in  the  piety  of 
his  heart,  believes  it  to  be  most  conducive  to  his  relig- 
ious interests  to  pray  at  stated  times  or  in  fixed  forms, 
far  be  it  from  me  to  censure  this  the  mode  of  his  de- 
votion, or  to  assume  that  his  petition  will  not  obtain 
access  to  the  Universal  Lord. 

Finally,  respecting  uncommanded  ceremonials  and 
rituals  of  all  kinds,  and  respecting  all  the  appendages 
of  public  worship  which  have  been  adopted  as  helps  to 
devotion,  there  is  one  truth  to  which  perhaps  every 
good  man  will  assent — that  if  religion  possessed  its 
sufficient  and  rightful  influence,  if  devotion  of  the 
heart  were  duly  maintained  without  these  things,  they 
would  no  longer  be  needed.  He  who  enjoys  the  vig- 
orous exercise  of  his  limbs,  is  encumbered  by  the  em- 
ployment of  a  crutch.  Whether  the  Christian  world  is 
yet  prepared  for  the  relinquishment  of  these  append- 
ages and  ' '  helps ' '  — whether  an  equal  degree  of  effica- 
cious religion  would  be  maintained  without  them — are 
questions  which  I  presume  not  to  determine  :  but  it 
may  nevertheless  be  decided,  that  this  is  the  state  of  the 
Christian  church  to  which  we  should  direct  our  hopes 
and  our  endeavors — and  that  Christianity  will  never 
possess  its  proper  influence,  and  will  not  effect  its  des- 


I30  REUGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  [ESSAY   II. 

tined  objects,  until  the  internal  dedication  of  the  heart 
is  universally  attained. 


To  those  who  may  sometimes  be  brought  into  con- 
tact with  persons  who  profess  scepticism  respecting 
Christianity,  and  especially  to  those  who  are  conscious 
of  any  tendency  in  their  own  minds  to  listen  to  the  ob- 
jections of  these  persons,  it  may  be  useful  to  observe, 
that  the  grounds  upon  which  sceptics  build  their  dis- 
belief of  Christianity,  are  commonly  very  slight.  The 
number  is  comparatively  few  whose  opinions  are  the 
result  of  any  tolerable  degree  of  investigation.  They 
embraced  sceptical  notions  through  the  means  which 
they  now  take  of  diffusing  them  amongst  others — not  by 
arguments  but  jests  ;  not  by  objections  to  the  historical 
evidence  of  Christianity,  but  by  conceits  and  witti- 
cisms ;  not  by  examining  the  nature  of  religion  as  it 
was  delivered  by  its  Founder,  but  by  exposing  the  con- 
duct of  those  who  profess  it.  Perhaps  the  seeming 
paradox  is  true,  that  no  men  are  so  credulous,  that  no 
men  accept  important  propositions  upon  such  slender 
evidence,  as  the  majority  of  those  who  reject  Chris- 
tianity. To  believe  that  the  religious  opinions  of  al- 
most all  the  civilized  world  are  founded  upon  impos- 
ture, is  to  believe  an  important  proposition  ;  a  propo- 
sition which  no  man,  who  properly  employs  his  facul- 
ties, would  believe  without  considerable  weight  of  evi- 
dence. But  what  is  the  evidence  upon  which  the 
1 '  unfledged  witlings  who  essay  their  wanton  efforts ' ' 
against  religion,  usually  found  their  notions?  Alas! 
they  are  so  far  from  having  rejected  Christianity  upon 
the  examination  of  its  evidences  that  they  do  not  know 
what  Christianity  is.  To  disbelieve  the  religion  of 
Christianity  upon  grounds  which  shall  be  creditable  to 
the  understanding,  involves  no  light  task.  A  man 
must  investigate  and  scrutinize  ;  he  must  examine  the 


CHAP.    I.]  RELIGIOUS  OBLIGATIONS.  I3I 

credibility  of  testimony  ;  he  must  weigh  and  compare 
evidence  ;  he  must  enquire  into  the  reality  of  historical 
facts.  If,  after  rationally  doing  all  this,  he  disbelieves 
in  Christianity — be  it  so.  I  think  him,  doubtless,  mis- 
taken, but  I  do  not  think  him  puerile  and  credulous. 
But  he  who  professes  scepticism  without  any  of  this 
species  of  enquiry,  is  credulous  and  puerile  indeed ; 
and  such  most  sceptics  actually  are.  "  Concerning  un- 
believers and  doubters  of  every  class,  one  observation 
may  almost  universally  be  made  w7ith  truth,  that  they 
are  little  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  still  less  with  the  evidence  by  which  it  is 
supported."*  In  France,  scepticism  has  extended  it- 
self as  widely  perhaps  as  in  any  country  in  the  world, 
and  its  philosophers  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  were 
ranked  amongst  the  most  intelligent  and  sagacious  of 
mankind.  And  upon  what  grounds  did  these  men  re- 
ject Christianity  ?  Dr.  Priestley  went  with  Lord  Shel- 
burne  to  France,  and  he  says,  ' '  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  and  conversing  with  every  person  of  emi- 
nence wherever  we  came  : ' '  I  found  ' '  all  the  philo- 
sophical persons  to  whom  I  was  introduced  at  Paris,  un- 
believers in  Christianity,  and  even  professed  atheists. 
As  I  chose  on  all  occasions  to  appear  as  a  Christian,  I 
was  told  by  some  of  them  that  I  was  the  only  person 
they  had  ever  met  with,  of  whose  understanding  they 
had  any  opinion,  who  professed  to  believe  in  Chris- 
tianity. But  on  interrogating  them  on  the  subject,  I 
soon  found  that  they  had  given  no  proper  attention  to  it, 
and  did  not  really  know  what  Christianity  was.  This 
was  also  the  case  with  a  great  part  of  the  company  that 
I  saw  at  Lord  Shelburne's."f  If  these  philosophical 
men  rejected  Christianity  in  such  contemptible  and 
shameful  ignorance  of  its  nature  and  evidences,  upon 

*  Gisborne's  Duties  of  Men. 
t  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Priestley. 


132  RELIGIOUS   OBLIGATIONS  [ESSAY  II. 

what  grounds  are  we  to  suppose  the  ordinary  striplings 
of  infidelity  reject  it  ? 

How  then  does  it  happen  that  those  who  affect  scep- 
ticism are  so  ambitious  to  make  their  scepticism 
known  ?  Because  it  is  a  short  and  easy  road  to  dis- 
tinction ;  because  it  affords  a  cheap  means  of  gratifying 
vanity.  To  "rise  above  vulgar  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions"— "to  entertain  enlarged  and  liberal  opin- 
ions,' '  are  phrases  of  great  attraction,  especially  to 
young  men  ;  and  how  shall  they  show  that  they  rise 
above  vulgar  prejudices,  how  shall  they  so  easily  mani- 
fest the  enlargement  of  their  views,  as  by  rejecting  a 
system  which  all  their  neighbors  agree  to  be  true? 
They  feel  important  to  themselves,  and  that  they  are 
objects  of  curiosity  to  others  :  and  they  are  objects  of 
curiosity,  not  on  account  of  their  own  qualities,  but  on 
account  of  the  greatness  of  that  which  they  contemn. 
The  peasant  who  reviles  a  peasant,  may  revile  him 
without  an  auditor,  but  a  province  will  listen  to  him 
who  vilifies  a  king.  I  know  not  that  an  intelligent 
person  should  be  advised  to  reason  with  these  puny 
assailants  :  their  notions  and  their  conduct  are  not  the 
result  of  reasoning.  What  they  need  is  the  humilia- 
tion of  vanity  and  the  exposure  of  folly.  A  few  simple 
interrogations  would  expose  their  folly  ;  and  for  the 
purposes  of  humiliation,  simply  pass  them  by.  The 
sun  that  shines  upon  them,  makes  them  look  bright 
and  large.  L,et  reason  and  truth  withdraw  their  rays, 
and  these  seeming  stars  will  quickly  set  in  silence  and 
in  darkness. 

More  contemptible  motives  to  the  profession  of  infi- 
delity cannot  perhaps  exist,  but  there  are  some  which 
are  more  detestable.  Hartley  says  that  ' '  the  strictness 
and  purity  of  the  Christian  religion  in  respect  to  sexual 
licentiousness,  is  probably  the  chief  thing  which  makes 


CHAP.    II  ]  PROPERTY.  133 

vicious  men  first  fear  and  hate,  and  then  vilify  and  op- 
pose it."* 

Whether  therefore  we  regard  the  motives  which  lead 
to  scepticism,  or  the  reasonableness  of  the  grounds 
upon  which  it  is  commonly  founded,  there  is  surely 
much  reason  for  an  ingenuous  young  person  to  hold  in 
contempt  the  jests,  and  pleasantries,  and  sophistries 
respecting  revelation  with  which  he  may  be  assailed. 


CHAPTER  II. 
PROPERTY. 


Foundation  of  the  Right  to  Property — Insolvency  :  Perpetual 
obligation  to  pay  debts  :  Reform  of  public  opinion  :  Ex- 
amples of  integrity — Wills,  Legatees,  Heirs  :  Informal  Wills  : 
Intestates — Minor's  debts  —  A  Wife's  debts  —  Bills  of  Ex- 
change— Unjust  defendants — Privateers — Confiscations  —  In- 
surance— Settlements — Houses  of  infamy — Literary  property — 
Rewards. 

Disquisitions  respecting  the  origin  of  property  ap- 
pear to  be  of  little  use  ;  partly  because  the  origin  can 
scarcely  be  determined,  and  partly  because,  if  it  could 
be  determined,  the  discovery  would  be  little  applicable 
to  the  present  condition  of  human  affairs.  In  whatever 
manner  an  estate  was  acquired  two  thousand  years  ago, 
it  is  of  no  consequence  in  enquiring  who  ought  to 
possess  it  now. 

The  foundation  of  the  right  to  property  is  a  more 
important  point.  Ordinarily,  the  foundation  is  the  law 
of  the  land.  Of  civil  government — which  institution 
is  sanctioned  by  the  Divine  will — one  of  the  great  offi- 
ces is,  to  regulate  the  distribution  of  property  ;  to  give 
it,  if  it  has  the  power  of  giving  ;  or  to  decide  between 
opposing  claimants,  to  whom  it  shall  be  assigned. 

*  Observations  on  Man. 


134  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

The  proposition  therefore,  as  a  general  rule,  is  sound; 
— He  possesses  a  right  to  property  to  whom  the  law  of  the 
land  assigns  it.  This  however  is  only  a  general  rule. 
It  has  been  sufficiently  seen  that  some  legal  possessions 
are  not  permitted  by  the  moral  law.  The  occasional 
opposition  between  the  moral  and  the  legal  right  to 
property,  is  inseparable  from  the  principle  on  which 
law  is  founded — that  of  acting  upon  general  rules.  It 
is  impossible  to  frame  any  rule,  the  application  of  which 
shall,  in  every  variety  of  circumstances,  effect  the 
requisitions  of  Christian  morality.  A  rule  which  in 
nine  cases  proves  equitable,  may  prove  utterly  unjust 
in  the  tenth.  A  rule  which  in  nine  cases  promotes  the 
welfare  of  the  citizen,  may  in  the  tenth  outrage  reason 
and  humanity. 

It  is  evident  that  in  the  present  state  of  legal  institu- 
tions, the  evils  which  result  from  laws  respecting  prop- 
erty must  be  prevented,  if  they  are  prevented  at  all,  by 
the  exercise  of  virtue  in  individuals.  If  the  law  assigns 
a  hundred  pounds  to  me,  which  every  upright  man 
perceives  ought  in  equity  to  have  been  assigned  to  an- 
other, that  other  has  no  means  of  enforcing  his  claim. 
Either  therefore  the  claim  of  equity  must  be  disre- 
garded, or  /  must  voluntarily  satisfy  it. 

There  are  many  cases  connected  with  the  acquisition 
or  retention  of  property,  with  which  the  decisions  of 
law  are  not  immediately  connected,  but  respecting 
which  it  is  needful  to  exercise  a  careful  discrimination, 
in  order  to  conform  to  the  requisitions  of  Christian  rec- 
titude. The  whole  subject  is  of  great  interest,  and 
of  extensive  practical  application  in  the  intercourse 
of  life.  The  reader  will  therefore  be  presented  with 
several  miscellaneous  examples,  in  which  the  moral 
law  appears  to  require  greater  purity  of  rectitude  than 
is  required  by  statutes,  or  than  is  ordinarily  practised 
by  mankind. 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  I35 

Insolvency. — Why  is  a  man  obliged  to  pay  his 
debts  ?  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  morality  of  few  per- 
sons is  lax  enough  to  reply — Because  the  law  compels 
him.  But  why,  then,  is  he  obliged  to  pay  them? 
Because  the  moral  law  requires  it.  That  this  is  the 
primary  ground  of  the  obligation  is  evident ;  otherwise 
the  payment  of  any  debt  which  a  vicious  or  corrupt 
legislature  resolved  to  cancel,  would  cease  to  be  oblig- 
atory upon  the  debtor.  The  Virginian  statute,  which 
we  noticed  in  the  last  Essay,  would  have  been  a  suffic- 
ient justification  to  the  planters  to  defraud  their 
creditors. 

A  man  becomes  insolvent  and  is  made  a  bankrupt:  he 
pays  his  creditors  ten  shillings  instead  of  twenty,  and 
obtains  his  certificate.  The  law,  therefore,  discharges 
him  from  the  obligation  to  pay  more.  The  bankrupt 
receives  a  large  legacy,  or  he  engages  in  business  and 
acquires  property.  Being  then  able  to  pay  the  re- 
mainder of  his  debts,  does  the  legal  discharge  exempt 
him  from  the  obligation  to  pay  them  ?  No  :  and  for 
this  reason  that  the  legal  discharge  is  not  a  moral  dis- 
charge ;  that  as  the  duty  to  pay  at  all  was  not  founded 
primarily  on  the  law,  the  law  cannot  warrant  him  in 
withholding  a  part. 

It  is  however  said,  that  the  creditors  have  relin- 
quished their  right  to  the  remainder  by  signing  the 
certificate.  But  why  did  they  accept  half  their  de- 
mands instead  of  the  whole?  Because  they  were 
obliged  to  do  it  ;  they  could  get  no  more.  As  to 
granting  the  certificate,  they  do  it  because  to  withhold 
it  would  be  only  an  act  of  gratuitous  unkindness.  It 
would  be  preposterous  to  say  that  creditors  relinquish 
their  claims  voluntarily;  for  no  one  would  give  up  his 
claim  to  twenty  shillings  on  the  receipt  of  ten  if  he 
could  get  the  other  ten  by  refusing.  It  might  as 
reasonably  be  said  that  a  man  parts  with  a  limb  volun- 


I36  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY   II. 

tarily,  because,  having  incurably  lacerated  it,  he  sub- 
mits to  an  amputation.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  too, 
that  the  necessary  relinquishment  of  half  the  demand 
is  occasioned  by  the  debtor  himself  :  and  it  seems  very 
manifest  that  when  a  man,  by  his'  own  act,  deprives 
another  of  his  property,  he  cannot  allege  the  conse- 
quences of  that  act  as  a  justification  of  withholding  it 
after  restoration  is  in  his  power. 

The  mode  in  which  an  insolvent  man  obtains  a  dis- 
charge, does  not  appear  to  affect  his  subsequent  duties. 
Compositions,  and  bankruptcies,  and  discharges  by  an 
insolvent  act  are  in  this  respect  alike.  The  acceptance 
of  a  part  instead  of  the  whole  is  not  voluntary  in  either 
case  ;  and  neither  case  exempts  the  debtor  from  the  ob- 
ligation to  pay  in  full  if  he  can. 

If  it  should  be  urged  that  when  a  person  intrusts 
property  to  another,  he  knowingly  undertakes  the  risk 
of  that  other's  insolvency,  and  that,  if  the  contingent 
loss  happens,  he  has  no  claims  to  justice  on  the  other, 
the  answer  is  this  ;  that  whatever  may  be  thought  of 
these  claims,  they  are  not  the  grounds  upon  which  the 
debtor  is  obliged  to  pay.  The  debtor  always  engages 
to  pay,  and  the  engagement  is  enforced  by  morality ; 
the  engagement  therefore  is  binding,  whatever  risk 
another  man  may  incur  by  relying  upon  it.  The 
causes  which  have  occasioned  a  person's  insolvency,  al- 
though they  greatly  affect  his  character,  do  not  affect 
his  obligations  :  the  duty  to  repay  when  he  has  the 
power,  is  the  same  whether  the  insolvency  were  occa- 
sioned by  his  fault  or  his  misfortune.  In  all  cases,  the 
reasoning  that  applies  to  the  debt,  applies  also  to  the 
interest  that  accrues  upon  it;  although  with  respect  to  the 
acceptance  of  both,  and  especially  of  interest,  a  credi- 
tor should  exercise  a  considerate  discretion. — A  man 
who  has  failed  of  paying  his  debts  ought  always  to 
live  with   frugality,  and   carefully  to  economize  such 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  I37 

money  as  he  gains.  He  should  reflect  that  he  is  a 
trustee  for  his  creditors,  and  that  all  the  needless 
money  which  he  expends  is  not  his  but  theirs. 

The  amount  of  property  which  the  trading  part  of  a 
commercial  nation  loses  by  insolvency,  is  great  enough 
to  constitute  a  considerable  national  evil.  The  fraud, 
too,  that  is  practised  under  cover  of  insolvency,  is 
doubtless  the  most  extensive  of  all  species  of  private 
robbery.  The  profligacy  of  some  of  these  cases  is  well 
known  to  be  extreme.  He  who  is  a  bankrupt  to-day, 
riots  in  the  luxuries  of  affluence  to-morrow  ;  bows  to 
the  creditors  whose  money  he  is  spending,  and  exults 
in  the  success  and  the  impunity  of  his  wickedness.  Of 
such  conduct  we  should  not  speak  or  think  but  with 
detestation.  We  should  no  more  sit  at  the  table,  or 
take  the  hand  of  such  a  man,  than  if  we  knew  he  had 
got  his  money  last  night  on  the  highway.  There  is  a 
wickedness  in  some  bankruptcies  to  which  the  guilt  of 
ordinary  robbers  approaches  but  at  a  distance.  Happy, 
if  such  wickedness  could  not  be  practised  with  legal 
impunity  I*  Happy,  if  public  opinion  supplied  the 
deficiency  of  the  law  and  held  the  iniquity  in  rightful 
abhorrence  !f 

Perhaps  nothing  would  tend  so  efficaciously  to  di- 
minish the  general  evils  of  insolvency,  as  a  sound  state 
of  public  opinion  respecting  the  obligation  to  pay  our 
debts.  The  insolvent  who,  with  the  means  of  paying, 
retains  the  money  in  his  own  pocket,  is,  and  he  should 
be  regarded  as  being,  a  dishonest  man.  If  public 
opinion  held  such  conduct  to  be  of  the  same  character 
as  theft,  probably  a  more  powerful  motive  to  avoid 
insolvency  would  be  established  than  any  which  now 
exists.  Who  would  not  anxiously  (and  therefore,  in 
almost  all  cases,  successfully)  struggle  against  insol- 
vency, when  he  knew  that  it  would  be  followed,  if  not 
*  See  the  3d  Essay.  t  Id. 


I38  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY   II. 

by  permanent  poverty,  by  permanent  disgrace  ?  If  it 
should  be  said  that  to  act  upon  such  a  system  would 
overwhelm  an  insolvent's  energies,  keep  him  in  per- 
petual inactivity,  and  deprive  his  family  of  the  benefit 
of  his  exertions — I  answer,  that  the  evil,  supposing  it 
to  impend,  would  be  much  less  extensive  than  may  be 
imagined.  The  calamity  being  foreseen,  would  pre- 
vent men  from  becoming  insolvent ;  and  it  is  certain 
that  the  majority  might  have  avoided  insolvency  by 
sufficient  care.  Besides,  if  a  man's  principles  are  such 
that  he  would  rather  sink  into  inactivity  than  exert 
himself  in  order  to  be  just,  it  is  not  necessary  to  mould 
public  opinion  to  his  character.  The  question  too  is, 
not  whether  some  men  would  not  prefer  indolence  to 
the  calls  of  justice,  but  whether  the  public  should 
judge  accurately  respecting  what  those  calls  are.  The 
state,  and  especially  a  family,  might  lose  occasionally 
by  this  reform  of  opinion — and  so  they  do  by  sending 
a  man  to  New  South  Wales  ;  but  who  would  think  this 
a  good  reason  for  setting  criminals  at  large?  And 
after  all,  much  more  would  be  gained  by  preventing 
insolvency,  than  lost  by  the  ill  consequences  upon  the 
few  who  failed  to  pay  their  debts. 

It  is  cause  of  satisfaction  that,  respecting  this  recti- 
fied state  of  opinion,  and  respecting  integrity  of  private 
virtue,  some  examples  are  offered.  There  is  one  com- 
munity of  Christians  which  holds  its  members  obliged 
to  pay  their  debts  whenever  they  possess  the  ability, 
without    regard    to    the    legal    discharge.*     By   this 

*"  Where  any  have  injured  others  in  their  property,  the 
greatest  frugality  should  be  observed  by  themselves  and  their 
families  ;  and  although  they  may  have  a  legal  discharge  from 
their  creditors,  both  equity  and  our  Christian  profession  de- 
mand, that  none,  when  they  have  it  in  their  power,  should  rest 
satisfied  until  a  just  restitution  be  made  to  those  who  have  suf- 
fered by  them." 

11  And  it  is  the  judgment  of  this  meeting,  that  monthly  and 


CHAP.    II.  PROPERTY.  I39 

means,  there  is  thrown  over  the  character  of  every 
bankrupt  who  possesses  property,  a  shade  which  noth- 
ing but  payment  can  dispel.  The  effect  (in  conjunc- 
tion we  may  hope  with  private  integrity  of  principle)  is 
good — good,  both  in  instituting  a  new  motive  to  avoid 
insolvency  and  in  inducing  some  of  those  who  do  become 
insolvent,  subsequently  to  pay  all  their  debts. 

Of  this  latter  effect  many  honorable  instances  might  be 
given  :  two  of  which  having  fallen  under  my  observation, 
I  would  briefly  mention. — A  man  had  become  insolvent, 
I  believe  in  early  life  ;  his  creditors  divided  his  property 
amongst  them,  and  gave  him  a  legal  discharge.  He 
appears  to  have  formed  the  resolution  to  pay  the  re- 
mainder, if  his  own  exertions  should  enable  him  to  do 
it.  He  procured  employment,  by  which  however  he 
never  gained  more  than  twenty  shillings  a  week  ;  and 
worked  industriously  and  lived  frugally  for  eighteen 
years.  At  the  expiration  of  this  time,  he  found  he  had 
accumulated  enough  to  pay  the  remainder,  and  he 
sent  the  money  to  his  creditors.  Such  a  man,  I  think, 
might  hope  to  derive,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life, 
greater  satisfaction  from  the  consciousness  of  integrity, 
than  he  would  have  derived  from  expending  the  money 
on  himself.  It  should  be  told  that  many  of  his  credi- 
tors, when  they  heard  the  circumstances,  declined  to 
receive  the  money,  or  voluntarily  presented  it  to  him 
again.  One  of  these  was  my  neighbor  ;  he  had  been 
little  accustomed  to  exemplary  virtue,  and  the  proffered 
money  astonished  him  :  he  talked  in  loud  commenda- 

other  meetings  ought  not  to  receive  collections  or  bequests  for 
the  use  of  the  poor,  or  any  other  services  of  the  Society,  of  per- 
sons who  have  fallen  short  in  the  payment  of  their  just  debts, 
though  legally  discharged  by  their  creditors  :  for  until  such 
persons  have  paid  the  deficiency,  their  possessions  cannot  in 
equity  be  considered  as  their  own." 

Official  Documents  of  the  Yearly  Meeting  of  the  Society  of 
Friends. 


140  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY   II. 

tion  of  what  to  him  was  unheard-of  integrity  ;  signed 
a  receipt  for  the  amount,  and  sent  it  back  as  a  present 
to  the  debtor.  The  other  instance  may  furnish  hints 
of  a  useful  kind.  It  was  the  case  of  a  female  who  had 
endeavored  to  support  herself  by  the  profits  of  a  shop. 
She  however  became  insolvent,  paid  some  dividend, 
and  received  a  discharge.  She  again  entered  into 
business,  and  in  the  course  of  years  had  accumulated 
enough  to  pay  the  remainder  of  her  debts.  But  the 
infirmities  of  age  were  now  coming  on,  and  the  annual 
income  from  her  savings  was  just  sufficient  for  the 
wants  of  declining  years.  Being  thus  at  present  unable 
to  discharge  her  obligations  without  subjecting  herself 
to  the  necessity  of  obtaining  relief  from  others,  she 
executed  a  will,  directing  that  at  her  death  the  credi- 
tors should  be  paid  the  remainder  of  their  demands : 
and  when  she  died  they  were  paid  accordingly. 

Wm<s,  Legatees,  and  Heirs. — The  right  of  a 
person  to  order  the  distribution  of  his  property  after 
death,  is  recommended  by  its  utility  ;  and  were  this 
less  manifest  than  it  is,  it  would  be  sufficient  for  us 
that  the  right  is  established  by  civil  government. 

It  however  happens  in  practice,  that  persons  some- 
times distribute  their  property  in  a  manner  that  is  both 
unreasonable  and  unjust.  This  evil  the  law  cannot 
easily  remedy  ;  and  consequently  the  duty  of  remedy- 
ing it,  devolves  upon  those  to  whom  the  property  is 
bequeathed.  If  they  do  not  prevent  the  injustice,  it 
cannot  be  prevented.  This  indicates  the  propriety,  on 
the  part  of  a  legatee  or  an  heir,  of  considering,  when 
property  devolves  to  him  in  a  manner  or  in  a  propor- 
tion that  appears  improper,  how  he  may  exercise  up- 
right integrity,  lest  he  should  be  the  practical  agent  of 
injustice  or  oppression.  Another  cause  for  the  exer- 
cise of  this  integrity  consists  in  this  circumstance  : — 
When  the  right  of  a  person  to  bequeath  his  property  is 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  141 

admitted,  it  is  evident  that  his  intention  ought  in  gen- 
eral to  be  the  standard  of  his  successor's  conduct :  and 
accordingly  the  law,  in  making  enactments  upon  the 
subject,  directs  much  of  its  solicitude  to  the  means  of 
ascertaining  and  of  fulfilling  the  testator's  intentions. 
These  intentions  must,  according  to  the  existing  sys- 
tems of  jurisprudence,  be  ascertained  by  some  general 
rules — by  a  written  declaration  perhaps,  or  a  declara- 
tion of  a  specified  kind,  or  made  in  a  prescribed  form, 
or  attested  in  a  particular  manner.  But  in  consequence 
of  this  it  happens,  that  as  through  accident  or  inad- 
vertency a  testator  does  not  always  comply  with  these 
forms,  the  law,  which  adheres  to  its  rules,  frustrates 
his  intentions,  and  therefore,  in  effect,  defeats  its  own 
object  in  prescribing  the  forms.  Here  again  the  in- 
tentions of  the  deceased  and  the  demands  of  equity 
cannot  be  fulfilled,  except  by  the  virtuous  integrity  of 
heirs  and  legatees. 

I.  If  my  father,  who  had  one  son  besides  myself,  left 
nine-tenths  of  his  property  to  me,  and  only  the  remain- 
ing tenth  to  my  brother,  I  should  not  think  the  will, 
however  authentic,  justified  me  in  taking  so  large  a 
proportion,  unless  I  could  discover  some  reasonable 
motive  which  influenced  my  father's  mind.  If  my 
brother  already  possessed  a  fortune  and  I  had  none  ;  if 
I  were  married  and  had  a  numerous  family  ;  and  he 
were  single  and  unlikely  to  marry;  if  he  was  incurably 
extravagant,  and  would  probably  in  a  few  weeks  or 
months  squander  his  patrimony  ;  in  these,  or  in  such 
circumstances,  I  should  think  myself  at  liberty  to  ap- 
propriate my  father's  bequest :  otherwi.se  I  should  not. 
Thus,  if  the  disproportionate  division  was  the  effect  of 
some  unreasonable  prejudice  against  my  brother,  or 
fondness  for  me  ;  or  if  it  was  made  at  the  unfair  insti- 
gation of  another  person,  or  in  a  temporary  fit  of  pas- 
sion or  disgust  ;  I  could  not,  virtuously,  enforce  the 


142  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

will.  The  reason  is  plain.  The  will  being  unjust  or 
extremely  unreasonable,  I  should  be  guilty  of  injustice 
or  extreme  unreasonableness  in  enforcing  it. 

A  man  who  possesses  five  thousand  pounds,  has  two 
sons,  of  whom  John  is  well  provided  for,  and  Thomas 
is  not.  With  the  privity  of  his  sons  he  makes  a  will, 
leaving  four  thousand  pounds  to  Thomas  and  one  to 
John,  explaining  to  both  the  reasons  of  this  division. 
A  fire  happens  in  the  house  and  the  will  is  burnt ; 
and  the  father,  before  he  has  the  opportunity  of 
making  another,  is  carried  off  by  a  fever.  Now  the 
English  law  would  assign  a  half  of  the  money  to 
each  brother.  If  John  demands  his  half,  is  he  a 
just  man?  Every  one  I  think  will  perceive  that  he 
is  not,  and  that,  if  he  demanded  it,  he  would  violate 
the  duties  of  benevolence.  The  law  is  not  his  suf- 
ficient rule. 

A  person  whose  near  relations  do  not  stand  in  need 
of  his  money,  adopts  the  children  of  distant  relatives, 
with  the  declared  intention  or  manifest  design  of  pro- 
viding for  them  at  his  death.  If,  under  such  circum- 
stances, he  dies  without  a  will,  the  heir  at  law  could 
not  morally  avail  himself  of  his  legal  privilege,  to  the 
injury  of  these  expectant  parties.  They  need  the 
money,  and  he  does  not ;  which  is  one  good  reason  for 
not  seizing  it ;  but  the  intention  of  the  deceased  in- 
vested them  with  a  right ;  and  so  that  the  intention  is 
known,  it  matters  little  to  the  moral  obligation, 
whether  it  is  expressed  on  paper  or  not. 

Possibly  some  reader  may  say,  that  if  an  heir  or  lega- 
tee must  always  institute  enquiries  into  the  uncertain 
claims  of  others  before  he  accepts  the  property  of  the 
deceased,  and  if  he  is  obliged  to  give  up  his  own  claims 
whenever  their' s  seem  to  preponderate,  he  will  be  in- 
volved in  endless  doubts  and  scruples,  and  testators 
will  never  know  whether  their  wills  will  be  executed 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  143 

or  not  :  the  answer  is,  that  no  such  scrupulousness  is 
demanded.  Hardheartedness,  and  extreme  unreason- 
ableness, and  injustice,  are  one  class  of  considerations  ; 
critical  scruples,  and  uncertain  claims,  are  another. 

It  may  be  worth  a  paragraph  to  remark,  that  it  is  to 
be  feared  some  persons  think  too  complacently  of  their 
charitable  bequests,  or,  what  is  worse,  hope  that  it  is  a 
species  of  good  works  which  will  counterbalance  the 
offence  of  some  present  irregularities  of  conduct.  Such 
bequests  ought  not  to  be  discouraged  ;  and  yet  it 
should  be  remembered,  that  he  who  gives  money  after 
his  death,  parts  with  nothing  of  his  own.  He  gives  it 
only  when  he  cannot  retain  it.  The  man  who  leaves 
his  money  for  the  single  purpose  of  doing  good,  does 
right :  but  he  who  hopes  that  it  is  a  work  of  merit, 
should  remember  that  the  money  is  given,  that  the  pri- 
vation is  endured,  not  by  himself  but  by  his  heirs.  A 
man  who  has  more  than  he  needs,  should  dispense  it 
whilst  it  is  his  own. 

Minors'  Debts. — A  young  man  under  twenty-one 
years  of  age  purchases  articles  of  a  tradesman,  of  which 
some  are  necessary  and  some  are  not.  Payment  for 
unnecessary  articles  cannot  be  enforced  by  the  English 
law — the  reason  with  the  Legislature  being  this,  that 
thoughtless  youths  might  be  practised  upon  by  design- 
ing persons,  and  induced  to  make  needless  and  extrav- 
agant purchases.  But  is  the  youth  who  purchases  un- 
necessary articles  with  the  promise  to  pay  when  he 
becomes  of  age,  exempted  from  the  obligation?  Now 
it  is  to  be  remembered,  generally,  that  this  obligation 
is  not  founded  upon  the  law  of  the  land,  and  therefore 
that  the  law  cannot  dispense  with  it.  But  if  the  trades- 
man has  actually  taken  advantage  of  the  inexperience  of 
a  youth,  to  cajole  him  into  debts  of  which  he  was  not 
conscious  of  the  amount  or  the  impropriety,  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  is  obliged  to  pay  them  ;  and  for  this 


144  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

reason,  that  he  did  not,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
term,  come  under  an  obligation  to  pay  them.  In  other 
cases,  the  obligation  remains.  The  circumstance  that 
the  law  will  not  assist  the  creditor  to  recover  the  money 
does  not  dispense  with  it.  It  is  fit,  no  doubt,  that 
these  dishonorable  tradesmen  should  be  punished, 
though  the  mode  of  punishing  them  is  exceptionable 
indeed.  It  operates  as  a  powerful  temptation  to  fraud 
in  young  men,  and  it  is  a  bad  system  to  discourage  dis- 
honesty in  one  person  by  tempting  the  probity  of  an- 
other. The  youth,  too,  is  of  all  persons  the  last  who 
should  profit  by  the  punishment  of  the  trader.  He  is 
reprehensible  himself  ;  young  men  who  contract  such 
debts  are  seldom  so  young  or  so  ignorant  as  not  to 
know  that  they  are  doing  wrong. 

A  man's  wife  "runs  him  into  debt"  by  extrava- 
gant purchases  which  he  is  alike  unable  to  prevent  or 
to  afford.  Many  persons  sell  goods  to  such  a  woman, 
who  are  conscious  of  her  habits  and  of  the  husband's 
situation,  yet  continue  to  supply  her  extravagance,  be- 
cause they  know  the  law  will  enable  them  to  enforce 
payment  from  the  husband.  These  persons  act  legally, 
but  they  are  legally  wicked.  Do  they  act  as  they 
would  desire  others  to  act  towards  them  ?  Would  one 
of  these  men  wish  another  tradesman  so  to  supply  his 
own  wife  if  she  was  notoriously  a  spendthrift  ?  If  not, 
morality  condemns  his  conduct :  and  the  laws,  in  effect, 
condemn  it  too  ;  for  the  Legislature  would  not  have 
made  husbands  responsible  for  their  wives'  debts  any 
more  than  for  their  children's,  but  for  the  presumption 
that  the  wife  generally  buys  what  the  husband  ap- 
proves. Debts  of  unprincipled  extravagance,  are  not 
debts  which  the  law  intended  to  provide  that  the  hus- 
band should  pay.  If  all  women  contracted  such  debts, 
the  Legislature  would  instantly  alter  the  law.  If  the 
Legislature  could  have  made  the  distinction,  perhaps 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  145 

it  would  have  made  it ;  since  it  did  not  or  could  not, 
the  deficiency  must  be  supplied  by  private  integrity. 

Bills  of  Exchange. — The  law  of  England  pro- 
vides, that  if  the  possessor  of  a  bill  of  exchange  fails 
to  demand  payment  on  the  day  on  which  it  becomes 
due,  he  takes  the  responsibility,  in  case  of  its  eventual 
non-payment,  from  the  previous  endorsers,  and  incurs 
it  himself.  This  as  a  general  rule  may  be  just.  A 
party  may  be  able  to  pay  to-day  and  unable  a  week 
hence  ;  and  if  in  such  a  case  a  loss  arises  by  one  man's 
negligence,  it  were  manifestly  unreasonable  that  it 
should  be  sustained  by  others.  But  if  the  acceptor  be- 
comes unable  to  pay  a  week  or  a  month  before  the  bill 
is  due,  the  previous  endorsers  cannot  in  justice  throw 
the  loss  upon  the  last  possessor,  even  though  he  fails 
to  present  it  on  the  appointed  day.  For  why  did  the 
law  make  its  provision  ?  In  order  to  secure  persons 
from  the  loss  of  their  property  by  the  negligence  of 
others  over  whom  they  had  no  control.  But,  in  the 
supposed  case,  the  loss  is  not  occasioned  by  any  such 
cause,  and  therefore  the  spirit  of  the  law  does  not 
apply  to  it.  You  are  insisting  upon  its  literal,  in  op- 
position to  its  just,  interpretation.  Whether  the  bill 
was  presented  on  the  right  day  or  the  wrong,  makes 
no  difference  to  the  previous  endorsers,  and  for  such  a 
case  the  law  was  not  made. 

A  similar  rule  of  virtue  applies  to  the  case  of  giving 
notice  of  refusal  to  accept  or  to  pay.  If,  in  consequence 
of  the  want  of  this  notice,  the  party  is  subjected  to 
loss,  he  may  avail  himself  of  the  legal  exemption  from 
the  last  possessor's  claim.  If  the  want  of  notice  made 
no  difference  in  his  situation,  he  may  not. 

Unjust  Defendants. — It  does  not  present  a  very 
favorable  view  of  the  state  of  private  principle,  that 
there  are  so  many  who  refuse  justice  to  plaintiffs,  un- 
less they  are  compelled  to  be  just  by  the  law.     It  is  in- 


146  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY    IL 

disputable,  that  a  multitude  of  suits  are  undertaken  in 
order  to  obtain  property  or  rights  which  the  defendant 
knows  he  ought  voluntarily  to  give  up.  Such  a  per- 
son is  certainly  a  dishonest  man.  When  the  verdict  is 
given  against  him,  I  regard  him  in  the  light  of  a  con- 
victed robber — differing  from  other  robbers  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that  he  is  tried  at  nisi  prius  instead  of  the 
Crown  bar.  For  what  is  the  difference  between  him 
who  takes  what  is  another's  and  him  who  withholds 
it  ?  This  severity  of  censure  applies  to  some  who  are 
sued  for  damages.  A  man  who,  whether  by  design  or 
inadvertency,  has  injured  another,  and  will  not  com- 
pensate him  unless  he  is  legally  compelled  to  do  it,  is 
surely  unjust.  Yet  many  of  these  persons  seem  to 
think  that  injury  to  property,  or  person,  or  character, 
entails  no  duty  to  make  reparation  except  it  be  en- 
forced. Why,  the  law  does  not  create  this  duty,  it  only 
compels  us  to  fulfil  it.  If  the  minds  of  such  persons 
were  under  the  influence  of  integrity,  they  would  pay 
such  debts  without  compulsion. — This  subject  is  one 
amongst  the  many  upon  which  public  opinion  needs  to 
be  aroused  and  to  be  rectified.  When  our  estimates  of 
moral  character  are  adjusted  to  individual  probity  of 
principle,  some  of  those  who  now  pass  in  society  as 
creditable  persons,  will  be  placed  at  the  same  point  on 
the  scale  of  morality,  as  many  of  those  who  are  con- 
signed to  a  jail. 

An  upright  man  should  not  accept  a  present  of  a  hun- 
dred pounds  from  a  person  who  had  not  paid  his  debts, 
nor  become  his  legatee.  If  the  money  were  not  right- 
fully his,  he  cannot  give  it ;  if  it  be  rightfully  his  cred- 
itors' it  cannot  be  mine. 

Privatkers. — Although  familiarity  with  war  occa- 
sions many  obliquities  in  the  moral  notions  of  a  people, 
yet  the  silent  verdict  of  public  opinion  is,  I  think, 
against  the  rectitude  of  privateering.     It  is  not  re- 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  147 

garded  as  creditable  and  virtuous  ;  and  this  public  dis- 
approbation appears  to  be  on  the  increase.  Consider- 
able exertion  at  least  has  been  made,  on  the  part  of  the 
American  government,  to  abolish  it. — To  this  private 
plunderer  himself  I  do  not  talk  of  the  obligations  of 
morality  ;  he  has  many  lessons  of  virtue  to  learn  before 
he  will  be  likely  to  listen  to  such  virtue  as  it  is  the  ob- 
ject of  these  pages  to  recommend  :  but  to  him  who  per- 
ceives the  flagitiousness  of  the  practice,  I  would  urge 
the  consideration  that  he  ought  not  to  receive  the 
plunder  of  a  privateer  even  at  second  hand.  If  a  man 
ought  not  to  be  the  legatee  of  a  bankrupt,  he  ought  not 
to  be  the  legatee  of  him  who  gained  his  money  by 
privateering.  Yet  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  who 
would  not  fit  out  a  privateer,  would  accept  the  money 
which  the  owners  had  stolen.  If  it  be  stolen,  it  is  not 
theirs  to  give  ;  and  what  one  has  no  right  to  give, 
another  has  no  right  to  accept. 

During  one  of  our  wars  with  France,  a  gentleman 
who  entertained  such  views  of  integrity  as  these  was 
partner  in  a  merchant  vessel,  and,  in  spite  of  his  repre- 
sentations, the  other  owners  resolved  to  fit  her  out  as  a 
privateer.  They  did  so,  and  she  happened  to  capture 
several  vessels.  This  gentleman  received  from  time  to 
time  his  share  of  the  prizes,  and  laid  it  by  ;  till,  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  war,  it  amounted  to  a  considerable 
sum.  What  was  to  be  done  with  the  money  ?  He  felt 
that,  as  an  upright  man,  he  could  not  retain  the 
money  ;  and  he  accordingly  went  to  France,  advertised 
for  the  owners  of  the  captured  vessels,  and  returned  to 
them  the  amount.  Such  conduct,  instead  of  being  a 
matter  for  good  men  to  admire,  and  for  men  of  loose 
morality  to  regard  as  needless  scrupulosity,  ought,  when 
such  circumstances  arise,  to  be  an  ordinary  occurrence. 
I  do  not  relate  the  fact  because  I  think  it  entitles  the 
party  to  any  extraordinary  praise.     He  was  honest  ;  and 


148  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY   II. 

honesty  was  his  duty.  The  praise,  if  praise  be  due, 
consists  in  this — that  he  was  upright  where  most  men 
would  have  been  unjust.  Similar  integrity  upon 
parallel  subjects  may  often  be  exhibited  again — upon 
privateering  it  cannot  often  be  repeated  ;  for  when  the 
virtue  of  the  public  is  great  enough  to  make  such  in- 
tegrity frequent,  it  will  be  great  enough  to  frown 
privateering  from  the  world. 

At  the  time  of  war  with  the  Dutch,  about  forty  years 
ago,  an  English  merchant  vessel  captured  a  Dutch 
Indiaman.  It  happened  that  one  of  the  owners  of  the 
merchantman  was  one  of  the  Society  of  Friends  or 
Quakers.  This  society,  as  it  objects  to  war,  does  not 
permit  its  members  to  share  in  such  a  manner  in  the 
profits  of  war.  However,  this  person,  when  he  heard 
of  the  capture,  insured  his  share  of  the  prize.  The 
vessel  could  not  be  brought  into  port,  and  he  received 
of  the  underwriters  eighteen  hundred  pounds.  To 
have  retained  this  money  would  have  been  equivalent 
to  quitting  the  society,  so  he  gave  it  to  his  friends  to 
dispose  of  it  as  justice  might  appear  to  prescribe.  The 
state  of  public  affairs  on  the  Continent  did  not  allow 
the  trustees  immediately  to  take  any  active  measures 
to  discover  the  owners  of  the  captured  vessel.  The 
money,  therefore,  was  allowed  to  accumulate.  At  the 
termination  of  the  war  with  France,  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  were  repeatedly  published  in  the  Dutch 
journals,  and  the  full  amount  of  every  claim  that  has 
been  clearly  made  out  has  been  paid  by  the  trustees. 

Confiscations. — I  do  not  know  whether  the  history 
of  confiscations  affords  any  examples  of  persons  who 
refused  to  accept  the  confiscated  property.  Yet,  when 
it  is  considered  under  what  circumstances  these  seizures 
are  frequently  made — of  revolution  and  civil  war,  and 
the  like,  when  the  vindictive  passions  overpower  the 
claims  of  justice  and  humanity — it  cannot  be  doubted 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  149 

that  the  acceptance  of  confiscated  property  has  some- 
times been  an  act  irreconcilable  with  integrity.  Look, 
for  example,  at  the  confiscations  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. The  Government  which  at  the  moment  held 
the  reins,  doubtless  sanctioned  the  appropriation  of  the 
property  which  they  seized ;  and  in  so  far  the  accep- 
tance was  legal.  But  that  surely  is  not  sufficient.  Let 
an  upright  man  suppose  himself  to  be  the  neighbor  of 
another,  who,  with  his  family,  enjoys  the  comforts  of  a 
paternal  estate.  In  the  distractions  of  political  tur- 
bulence this  neighbor  is  carried  off  and  banished,  and 
the  estate  is  seized  by  order  of  the  government. 
Would  such  a  man  accept  this  estate  when  the  govern- 
ment offered  it,  without  enquiry  and  consideration  ? 
Would  he  sit  down  in  the  warm  comforts  of  plenty, 
whilst  his  neighbor  was  wandering,  destitute  perhaps, 
in  another  land,  and  whilst  his  family  were  in  sorrow 
and  in  want  ?  Would  he  not  consider  whether  the  con- 
fiscation was  consistent  with  justice  and  rectitude — 
and  whether,  if  it  were  right  with  respect  to  the  man, 
it  was  right  with  respect  to  his  children  and  his  wife, 
who  perhaps  did  not  participate  in  his  offences?  It 
may  serve  to  give  clearness  to  our  perception  to  con- 
sider, that  if  Louis  XVII.  had  been  restored  to  the 
throne  soon  after  his  father's  death,  it  is  probable  that 
many  of  the  emigrants  would  have  been  reinstated  in 
their  possessions.  Louis's  restoration  might  have  been 
the  result  of  some  intrigue,  or  of  a  battle.  Do,  then, 
the  obligations  of  mankind  as  to  enjoying  the  property 
of  another,  depend  on  such  circumstances  as  battles 
and  intrigues  ?  If  the  returning  emigrant  would  have 
rightfully  repossessed  his  estate  if  the  battle  was  suc- 
cessful, can  the  present  occupier  rightfully  possess  it  if 
the  battle  is  not  successful  ?  Is  the  result  of  a  political 
manoeuvre  a  proper  rule  to  guide  a  man's  conscience 
in  retaining  or  giving  up  the  houses  and  lands  of  his 


I50  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY   II. 

neighbors  ?  Politicians,  and  those  who  profit  by  con- 
fiscations, may  be  little  influenced  by  considerations 
like  these  ;  but  there  are  other  men,  who,  I  think,  will 
perceive  that  they  are  important,  and  who,  though  con- 
fiscated property  may  never  be  offered  to  them,  will  be 
able  to  apply  the  principles  which  these  considerations 
illustrate,  to  their  own  conduct  in  other  affairs. 

Insurance. — It  is  very  possible  for  a  man  to  act 
dishonestly  every  day  and  yet  never  to  defraud  another 
of  a  shilling.  A  merchant  who  conducts  his  business 
partly  or  wholly  with  borrowed  capital,  is  not  honest  if 
he  endangers  the  loss  of  an  amount  of  property  which,  if 
lost,  would  disable  him  from  paying  his  debts.  He 
who  possesses  a  thousand  pounds  of  his  own  and  bor- 
rows a  thousand  of  some  one  else,  cannot  .virtuously 
speculate  so  extensively  as  that,  if  his  prospects  should 
be  disappointed,  he  would  lose  twelve  hundred.  The 
speculation  is  dishonest  whether  it  succeeds  or  not :  it  is 
risking  other  men's  property  without  their  consent. 
Under  similar  circumstances  it  is  unjust  not  to  insure. 
Perhaps  the  majority  of  uninsured  traders,  if  their 
houses  and  goods  were  burnt,  would  be  unable  to  pay 
their  creditors.  The  injustice  consists  not  in  the  actual 
loss  which  may  be  inflicted,  (for  whether  a  fire  hap- 
pens or  not,  the  injustice  is  the  same,)  but  in  eridanger- 
ing  the  infliction  of  the  loss.  There  are  but  two  ways 
in  which,  under  such  circumstances,  the  claims  of  rec- 
titude can  be  satisfied — one  is  by  not  endangering  the 
property,  and  the  other  by  telling  its  actual  owner  that 
it  will  be  endangered,  and  leaving  him  to  incur  the 
risk  or  not  as  he  pleases. 

' '  Those  who  hold  the  property  of  others  afe  not 
warranted,  on  the  principles  of  justice,  in  neglecting 
to  intorm  themselves  from  time  to  time,  of  the  real 
situation  of  their  affairs.  "*     This  enforces  the  doctrines 

*  Official  Documents  of  the  Yearly  Meeting  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  ;  1826. 


CHAP.    1 1.  "I  PROPERTY.  151 

which  we  have  delivered.  It  asserts  that  injustice  at- 
taches to  not  investigating ;  and  this  injustice  is  often 
real  whether  creditors  are  injured  or  not. 

During  the  seventeenth  century,  when  religious  per- 
secution was  very  active,  some  beautiful  examples  of 
integrity  were  offered  by  its  victims.  It  was  common 
for  officers  to  seize  the  property  of  conscientious  and 
good  men,  and  sometimes  to  plunder  them  with  such 
relentless  barbarity  as  scarcely  to  leave  them  the  com- 
mon utensils  of  a  kitchen.  These  persons  sometimes 
had  the  property  of  others  on  their  premises,  and  when 
they  heard  that  the  officers  were  likely  to  make  a  seiz- 
ure, industriously  removed  from  their  premises  all 
property  but  their  own.  At  one  period,  a  number  of 
traders  in  the  country  who  had  made  purchases  in  the 
London  markets,  found  that  their  plunderers  were 
likely  to  disable  them  from  paying  for  their  purchases, 
and  they  requested  the  merchants  to  take  back,  and 
the  merchants  did  take  back,  their  goods. 

In  passing,  I  would  remark,  that  the  readers  of  mere 
general  history  only,  are  very  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  the  extent  to  which  persecution  on  account  of 
religion  has  been  practised  in  these  kingdoms,  ages 
since  protestantism  became  the  religion  of  the  state.  A 
competent  acquaintance  with  this  species  of  history,  is 
of  incomparable  greater  value  than  much  of  the  matter 
with  which  historians  are  wont  to  fill  their  pages. 

Settlements. — It  is  not  an  unfrequent  occurence, 
when  a  merchant  or  other  person  becomes  insolvent, 
that  the  creditors  unexpectedly  find  the  estate  is  charge- 
able with  a  large  settlement  on  the  wife.  There  is  a 
consideration  connected  with  this  which  in  a  greater 
degree  involves  integrity  of  character  than  perhaps  is 
often  supposed.  Men  in  business  obtain  credit  from 
others  in  consequence  of  the  opinions  which  others 
form  of   their  character    and  property.      The  latter, 


152  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

if  it  be  not  the  greater  foundation  of  credit,  is  a  great 
one.  A  person  lives  then  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a 
year ;  he  maintains  a  respectable  establishment,  and 
diffuses  over  all  its  parts  indications  of  property. 
These  appearances  are  relied  upon  by  other  men  :  they 
think  they  may  safely  entrust  him,  and  they  do  entrust 
him,  with  goods  or  money;  until,  when  his  insolvency  is 
suddenly  announced,  they  are  surprised  and  alarmed,  to 
find  that  five  hundred  a  year  is  settled  on  his  wife.  Now 
this  person  has  induced  others  to  confide  their  property 
to  him  by  holding  out  fallacious  appearances.  He  has 
in  reality  deceived  them  ;  and  the  deception  is  as  real, 
though  it  may  not  be  as  palpable,  as  if  he  had  deluded 
them  with  verbal  falsehoods.  He  has  been  acting  a 
continued  untruth.  Perhaps  such  a  man  will  say  that 
he  never  denied  that  the  greater  part  of  his  apparent 
property  was  settled  on  his  wife.  This  may  be  true  ; 
but,  when  his  neighbor  came  to  him  to  lodge  five  or  six 
hundred  pounds  in  his  hands  ;  when  he  was  conscious 
that  this  neighbor's  confidence  was  founded  upon  the 
belief  that  his  apparent  property  was  really  his  own  ; 
when  there  was  reason  to  apprehend,  that  if  his  neigh- 
bor had  known  his  actual  circumstances  he  would  have 
hesitated  in  entrusting  him  with  the  money,  then  he 
does  really  and  practically  deceive  his  neighbor,  and  it 
is  not  a  sufficient  justification  to  say  that  he  has  uttered 
no  untruth.  The  reader  will  observe  that  the  case  is 
very  different  from  that  of  a  person  who  conducts  his 
business  with  borrowed  money.  This  person  must  an- 
nually pay  the  income  of  the  money  to  the  lender.  He 
does  not  expend  it  on  his  own  establishment,  and  con- 
sequently does  not  hold  out  the  same  fallacious  appear- 
ances. Some  profligate  spendthrifts  take  a  house,  buy 
elegant  furniture,  and  keep  a  handsome  equipage,  in 
order  by  these  appearances  to  deceive  and  defraud 
traders.     No  man  doubts  whether  these  persons  act 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY  153 

criminally.  How  then  can  he  be  innocent  who  know- 
ingly practises  a  deception  similar  in  kind  though  vary- 
ing in  degree  ? 

Houses  of  Infamy. — If  it  were  not  that  a  want  of 
virtue  is  so  common  amongst  men,  we  should  wonder 
at  the  coolness  with  which  some  persons  of  decent  rep- 
utation are  content  to  let  their  houses  to  persons  of 
abandoned  character,  and  to  put  periodically  into  their 
pockets,  the  profits  of  infamy.  Sophisms  may  easily 
be  invented  to  palliate  the  conduct ;  but  nothing  can 
make  it  right.  Such  a  landlord  knows  perfectly  to 
what  purposes  his  house  will  be  devoted,  and  knows 
that  he  shall  receive  the  wages,  not  perhaps  of  his  own 
iniquity,  but  still  the  wages  of  iniquity.  He  is  almost 
a  partaker  with  them  in  their  sins.  If  I  were  to  sell  a 
man  arsenic  or  a  pistol,  knowing  that  the  buyer  wanted 
it  to  commit  murder,  should  I  not  be  a  bad  man  ?  If 
I  let  a  man  a  house,  knowing  that  the  renter  wants  it 
for  purposes  of  wickedness,  am  I  au  innocent  man  ? 
Not  that  it  is  to  be  affirmed  that  no  one  may  receive 
ill-gotten  money.  A  grocer  may  sell  a  pound  of  sugar 
to  a  woman  though  he  knows  she  is  upon  the  town. 
But,  if  we  cannot  specify  the  point  at  which  a  lawful 
degree  of  participation  terminates,  we  can  determine 
respecting  some  degrees  of  participation,  that  they 
are  unlawful.  To  the  majority  of  such  offenders 
against  the  moral  law,  these  arguments  may  be  urged 
in  vain  ;  there  are  some  of  whom  we  may  indulge 
greater  hope.  Respectable  public  brewers  are  in  the 
habit  of  purchasing  beer  houses  in  order  that  they  may 
supply  the  publicans  with  their  porter.  Some  of  these 
houses  are  notoriously  the  resort  of  the  most  abandoned 
of  mankind  ;  the  daily  scenes  of  riot,  and  drunkenness, 
and  of  the  most  filthy  debauchery.  Yet  these  houses 
are  purchased  by  brewers — perhaps  there  is  a  competi- 
tion amongst  them  for  the  premises  ;  they  put  in  a  ten- 


154  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

ant  of  their  own,  supply  him  with  beer,  and  regularly 
receive  the  profits  of  this  excess  of  wickedness.  Is 
there  no  such  obligation  as  that  of  abstaining  even 
from  the  appearance  of  evil  ?  Is  there  no  such  thing 
as  guilt  without  a  personal  participation  in  it  ?  All 
pleas  such  as  that,  if  one  man  did  not  supply  such  a 
house  another  would,  are  vain  subterfuges.  Upon 
such  reasoning,  you  might  rob  a  traveller  on  the  road, 
if  you  knew  that  at  the  next  turning  a  footpad  was 
waiting  to  plunder  him  if  you  did  not.  Selling  such 
houses  to  be  occupied  as  before,  would  be  like  selling 
slaves  because  you  thought  it  criminal  to  keep  them  in 
bondage.  The  obligation  to  discountenance  wicked- 
ness rests  upon  him  who  possesses  the  power.  • '  To 
him  who  knoweth  to  do  good  and  doeth  it  not,  to  him 
it  is  sin. ' '  To  retain  our  virtue  may  in  such  cases  cost 
us  something,  but  he  who  values  virtue  at  its  worth 
will  not  think  that  he  retains  it  at  a  dear  rate. 

IyiTKRARY  Prjdpbrty. — Upon  similar  grounds  there 
are  some  of  the  profits  of  the  press  which  a  good  man 
cannot  accept.  There  are  some  periodical  works  and 
some  newspapers,  from  which,  if  he  were  offered  an 
annual  income,  he  would  feel  himself  bound  to  reject 
it.  Suppose  there  is  a  newspaper  which  is  lucrative 
because  it  gratifies  a  vicious  taste  for  slander  or  in- 
decency— or  suppose  there  is  a  magazine  of  which  the 
profits  result  from  the  attraction  of  irreligious  or  licen- 
tious articles,  I  would  not  put  into  my  pocket,  every 
quarter  of  a  year,  the  money  which  was  gained  by 
vitiating  mankind.  In  all  such  cases,  there  is  one  sort 
of  obligation  which  applies  with  great  force,  the  ob- 
ligation not  to  discourage  rectitude  by  our  example. 
Upon  this  ground,  a  man  of  virtue  would  hesitate  even 
to  contribute  an  article  to  such  a  publication,  lest  they 
who  knew  he  was  a  contributor,  should  think  they  had 
his  example  to  justify  improprieties  of  their  own. 


CHAP.    II.]  PROPERTY.  155 

Rewards. — A  person  loses  his  pocket-book  contain- 
ing fifty  pounds,  and  offers  ten  pounds  to  the  finder  if 
he  will  restore  it.  The  finder  ought  not  to  demand  the 
reward.  It  implies  surely  some  imputation  upon  a 
man's  integrity,  when  he  accepts  payment  for  being 
honest.  For,  for  what  else  is  he  paid?  If  he  retains 
the  property  he  is  manifestly  fraudulent.  To  be  paid 
for  giving  it  up,  is  to  be  paid  for  not  committing  fraud. 
The  loser  offers  the  reward  in  order  to  over-power  the 
temptation  to  dishonesty.  To  accept  the  reward  is 
therefore  tacitly  to  acknowledge  that  you  would  have 
been  dishonest  if  it  had  not  been  offered.  This  cer- 
tainly is  not  maintaining  an  integrity  that  is  ! '  above 
suspicion."  It  will  be  said  that  the  reward  is  offered 
voluntarily .  This,  in  proper  language,  is  not  true. 
Two  evils  are  presented  to  the  loser,  of  which  he  is 
compelled  to  choose  one.  If  men  were  honest,  he 
would  not  offer  the  reward  :  he  would  make  it  known 
that  he  had  lost  his  pocket-book,  and  the  finder,  if  a 
finder  there  were,  would  restore  it.  The  offered  ten 
pounds  is  a  tax  which  is  imposed  upon  him  by  the 
want  of  uprightness  in  mankind,  and  he  who  demands 
the  money  actively  promotes  the  imposition.  The 
very  word  reward  carries  with  it  its  own  reprobation. 
As  a  reward,  the  man  of  integrity  would  receive  noth- 
ing. If  the  loser  requested  it,  he  might  if  he  needed 
it,  accept  a  donation  ;  but  he  would  let  it  be  under- 
stood, that  he  accepted  a  present  not  that  he  received  a 
debt. 

Perhaps  examples  enough  or  more  than  enough,  have 
been  accumulated  to  illustrate  this  class  of  obligations. 
Many  appeared  needful,  because  it  is  a  class  which  is 
deplorably  neglected  in  practice.  So  strong  is  the 
temptation  to  think  that  we  may  rightfully  possess 
whatever  the  law  assigns  to  us — so  insinuating  is  the 
notion,  upon  subjects  of  property,  that  whatever  the 


156  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.        [ESSAY  II. 

law  does  not  punish  we  may  rightfully  do,  that  there 
is  little  danger  of  supplying  too  many  motives  to 
habitual  discrimination  of  our  duties  and  to  habitual 
purity  of  conduct.  Let  the  reader  especially  remem- 
ber, that  the  examples  which  are  offered  are  not  all  of 
them  selected  on  account  of  their  individual  impor- 
tance, but  rather  as  illustrations  of  the  general  prin- 
ciple. A  man  may  meet  with  a  hundred  circumstances 
in  life  to  which  none  of  these  examples  are  relevant, 
but  I  think  he  will  not  have  much  difficulty  in  estimat- 
ing the  principles  which  they  illustrate.  And  this  in- 
duces the  observation,  that  although  several  of  these 
examples  are  taken  from  British  law  or  British  cus- 
toms, they  do  not,  on  that  account,  lose  their  appli- 
cability where  these  laws  and  customs  do  not  obtain. 
If  this  book  should  ever  be  read  in  a  foreign  land,  or 
if  it  should  be  read  in  this  land  when  public  institutions 
or  the  tenor  of  men's  conduct  shall  be  changed,  the 
principles  of  its  morality  will,  nevertheless,  be  appli- 
cable to  the  affairs  of  life. 


CHAPTER  III. 

INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY. 

Accumulation  of  wealth  :  its  proper  limits — Provision  for  chil- 
dren :  ' '  Keeping  up  the  family. ' ' 

That  many  and  great  evils  result  from  that  inequal- 
ity of  property  which  exists  in  civilized  countries,  is 
indicated  by  the  many  propositions  which  have  been 
made  to  diminish  or  destroy  it.  We  want  not  indeed 
such  evidence  j  for  it  is  sufficiently  manifest  to  every 
man  who  will  look  round  upon  his  neighbors.  We 
join  not  with  those  who  declaim  against  all  inequality 
of  property  :  the  real  evil  is  not  that  it  is  unequal,  but 


CHAP.    III.]  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.  I57 

that  it  is  greatly  unequal  ;  not  that  one  man  is  richer 
than  another,  but  that  one  man  is  so  rich  as  to  be 
luxurious,  or  imperious,  or  profligate,  and  that  another 
is  so  poor  as  to  be  abject  and  depraved,  as  well  as  to 
be  destitute  of  the  proper  comforts  of  life. 

There  are  two  means  by  which  this  pernicious  in- 
equality of  property  may  be  diminished  ;  by  political 
institutions,  and  by  the  exertions  of  private  men.  Our 
present  business  is  with  the  latter. 

To  a  person  who  possesses  and  expends  more  than 
he  needs,  there  are  two  reasonable  inducements  to  di- 
minish its  amount — first,  to  benefit  others,  and  next  to 
benefit  his  family  and  himself.  The  claims  of  benevo- 
lence towards  others  are  often  and  earnestly  urged 
upon  the  public,  and  for  that  reason  they  will  not  be 
repeated  here.  Not  that  there  is  no  occasion  to  repeat 
the  lessson,  for  it  is  very  inadequately  learnt ;  but 
that  it  is  of  more  consequence  to  exhibit  obligations 
which  are  less  frequently  enforced.  To  insist  upon 
diminishing  the  amount  of  a  man's  property  for  the 
sake  of  his  family  and  himself,  may  present  to  some 
men  new  ideas,  and  to  some  men  the  doctrine  may  be 
paradoxical. 

Large  possessions  are  in  a  great  majority  of  instances 
injurious  to  the  possessor — that  is  to  say,  those  who 
hold  them  are  generally  less  excellent,  both  as  citizens 
and  as  men,  than  those  who  do  not.  The  truth  ap- 
pears to  be  established  by  the  concurrent  judgment  of 
mankind.  Lord  Bacon  says — "  Certainly  great  riches 
have  sold  more  men  than  they  have  bought  out.  As 
baggage  is  to  an  army,  so  are  riches  to  virtue. — It 
hindereth  the  march,  yea  and  the  care  of  it  sometimes 
loseth  or  disturbeth  the  victory." — "  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  general  tendency  of  rank,  and  especially  of 
riches,  is  to  withdraw  the  heart   from  spiritual  exer- 


158  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.        [ESSAY  II. 

cises."*  "  A  much  looser  system  of  morals  commonly 
prevails  in  the  higher  than  in  the  middling  and  lower 
orders  of  society,  "f  "  The  middle  rank  contains  most 
virtue  and  abilities. ' '  J 

"  Wealth  heap'd  on  wealth,  nor  truth  nor  safety  buys, 
The  dangers  gather  as  the  treasures  rise. ' '  \ 

It  was  an  observation  of  Voltaire' s  that  the  English 
people  were,  like  their  butts  of  beer,  froth  at  top,  dregs 
at  bottom — in  the  middle  excellent.  The  most  rational, 
the  wisest,  the  best  portion  of  mankind,  belong  to  that 
class  who  ' '  possess  neither  poverty  nor  riches. ' '  Let 
the  reader  look  around  him.  Let  him  observe  who  are 
the  persons  that  contribute  most  to  the  moral  and 
physical  amelioration  of  mankind  ;  who  they  are  that 
practically  and  personally  support  our  unnumbered  in- 
stitutions of  benevolence ;  who  they  are  that  exhibit 
the  worthiest  examples  of  intellectual  exertion  ;  who 
they  are  to  whom  he  would  himself  apply  if  he  needed 
to  avail  himself  of  a  manly  and  discriminating  judg- 
ment. That  they  are  the  poor  is  not  to  be  expected  : 
we  appeal  to  himself  whether  they  are  the  rich.  Who 
then  would  make  his  son  a  rich  man  ?  Who  would  re- 
move his  child  out  of  that  station  in  society  which  is 
thus  peculiarly  favorable  to  intellectual  and  moral 
excellence  ? 

If  a  man  knows  that  wealth  will  in  all  probability  be 
injurious  to  himself  and  to  his  children,  injurious  too 
in  the  most  important  points,  the  religious  and  moral 
character,  it  is  manifestly  a  point  of  the  soundest  wis- 
dom and  the  truest  kindness  to  decline  to  accumulate 
it.  Upon  this  subject,  it  is  admirable  to  observe  with 
what  exactness  the  precepts  of  Christianity  are  adapted 

*  More's  Moral  Sketches,  3d  Edit.  p.  446. 
f  Wilberforce  :  Pract.  View. 
%  Wollestoncroft :  Rights  of  Women,  c.  4. 
I  Johnson  :  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes. 


CHAP.    III.]  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.  159 

to  that  conduct  which  the  experience  of  life  recom- 
mends. ' '  The  care  of  this  world  and  the  deceitf  ulness 
of  riches  choke  the  word  :" — "  choked  with  cares,  and 
riches,  and  pleasures  of  this  life,  and  bring  no  fruit  to 
perfection;" — "How  hardly  shall  they  that  have 
riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  !"  "  They  that 
will  be  rich  fall  into  temptation  and  a  snare,  and  into 
many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts  which  drown  men  in 
destruction  and  perdition."  Not  that  riches  necessar- 
ily lead  to  these  consequences,  but  that  such  is  their 
tendency  ;  a  tendency  so  uniform  and  powerful  that  it 
is  to  be  feared  these  are  their  very  frequent  results. 
Now  this  language  of  the  Christian  scriptures  does  not 
contain  merely  statements  of  fact — it  imposes  duties  ; 
and  whatever  may  be  the  precise  mode  of  regarding 
those  duties,  one  point  is  perfectly  clear; — that  he  who 
sets  no  other  limit  to  his  possessions  or  accumulations 
than  inability  or  indisposition  to  obtain  more,  does  not 
conform  to  the  will  of  God.  Assuredly,  if  any  speci- 
fied thing  is  declared  by  Christianity  to  be  highly 
likely  to  obstruct  our  advancement  in  goodness,  and  to 
endanger  our  final  felicity,  against  that  thing,  whatever 
it  be,  it  is  imperative  upon  us  to  guard  with  wakeful 
solicitude. 

And  therefore,  without  affirming  that  no  circum- 
stance can  justify  a  great  accumulation  of  property, 
it  may  safely  be  concluded  that  far  the  greater  number 
of  those  who  do  accumulate  it,  do  wrong  :  nor  do  I  see 
any  reason  to  be  deterred  from  ranking  the  distribution 
of  a  portion  of  great  wealth,  or  refusal  to  accumulate 
it,  amongst  the  imperative  duties  which  are  imposed  by 
the  moral  law.  In  truth,  a  man  may  almost  discover 
whether  such  conduct  is  obligatory,  by  referring  to  the 
motives  which  induce  him  to  acquire  great  property  or 
to  retain  it.  The  motives  are  generally  impure  ;  the 
desire  of  splendor,  or  the  ambition  of  eminence,   or 


i6o  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.        [ESSAY  II. 

the  love  of  personal  indulgence.  Are  these  motives 
fit  to  be  brought  into  competition  with  the  probable 
welfare,  the  virtue,  the  usefulness,  and  the  happiness 
of  his  family  and  himself  ?  Yet  such  is  the  competi- 
tion, and  to  such  unworthy  objects,  duty,  and  reason, 
and  affection  are  sacrificed. 

It  will  be  said,  a  man  should  provide  for  his  family  ; 
and  make  them,  if  he  can,  independent.  That  he 
should  provide  for  his  family  is  true  ;  that  he  should 
make  them  independent,  at  any  rate  that  he  should  give 
them  an  affluent  independence,  forms  no  part  of  his 
duty,  and  is  frequently  .a  violation  of  it.  As  it  respects 
almost  all  men,  he  will  best  approve  himself  a  wise  and 
kind  parent,  who  leaves  to  his  sons  so  much  only  as 
may  enable  them,  by  moderate  engagements,  to  enjoy 
the  conveniences  and  comforts  of  life ;  and  to  his 
daughters  a  sufficiency  to  possess  similar  comforts,  but 
not  a  sufficiency  to  shine  amongst  the  great,  or  to 
mingle  with  the  votaries  of  expensive  dissipation.  If 
any  father  prefers  other  objects  to  the  welfare  and  hap- 
piness of  his  children — if  wisdom  and  kindness  towards 
them  are  with  him  subordinate  considerations,  it  is  not 
probable  that  he  will  listen  to  reasonings  like  these. 
But  where  is  the  parent  who  dares  to  acknowledge  this 
preference  to  his  own  mind  ? 

It  were  idle  to  affect  to  specify  any  amount  of  prop- 
erty which  a  person  ought  not  to  exceed.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  one  man  may  make  it  reasonable  that  he 
should  acquire  or  retain  much  more  than  another  who 
has  fewer  claims.  Yet  somewhat  of  a  general  rule  may 
be  suggested.  He  who  is  accumulating  should  con- 
sider why  he  desires  more.  If  it  really  is,  that  he  be- 
lieves an  addition  will  increase  the  welfare  and  useful- 
ness and  virtue  of  his  family,  it  is  probable  that  further 
accumulation  may  be  right.  If  no  such  belief  is  sin- 
cerely entertained,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  it  is 


CHAP.    III.]  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.  l6l 

wrong.  He  who  already  possesses  affluence  should 
consider  its  actual  existing  effects. — If  he  employs  a 
competent  portion  of  it  in  increasing  the  happiness  of 
others,  if  it  does  not  produce  any  injurious  effect  upon 
his  own  mind,  if  it  does  not  diminish  or  impair  the  vir- 
tues of  his  children,  if  they  are  grateful  for  their  priv- 
ileges rather  than  vain  of  their  superiority,  if  they 
second  his  own  endeavors  to  diffuse  happiness  around 
them,  he  may  remain  as  he  is.  If  such  effects  are  not 
produced,  but  instead  of  them  others  of  an  opposite 
tendency,  he  certainly  has  too  much. — Upon  this  serious 
subject  let  the  Christian  parent  be  serious.  If,  as  is 
proved  by  the  experience  of  every  day,  great  property 
usually  inflicts  great  injuries  upon  those  who  possess 
it,  what  motive  can  induce  a  good  man  to  lay  it  up  for 
his  children?  What  motive  will  be  his  justification,  if 
it  tempts  them  from  virtue  ? 

When  children  are  similarly  situated  with  respect  to 
their  probable  wants,  there  seems  no  reason  for  preferr- 
ing the  elder  to  the  younger,  or  sons  to  daughters. 
Since  the  proper  object  of  a  parent  in  making  a  divi- 
sion of  his  property,  is  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  his 
children — if  this  object  is  likely  to  be  better  secured 
by  an  equal  than  by  any  other  division,  an  equal  divi- 
sion ought  to  be  made.  It  is  a  common,  though  not  a 
very  reasonable  opinion,  that  a  son  needs  a  larger  por- 
tion than  a  daughter.  To  be  sure,  if  he  is  to  live  in 
greater  affluence  than  she,  he  does.  But  why  should 
he?  There  appears  no  motive  in  reason,  and  certainly 
there  is  none  in  affection,  for  diminishing  one  child's 
comforts  to  increase  another's.  A  son  too  has  greater 
opportunities  of  gain.  A  woman  almost  never  grows 
rich  except  by  legacies  or  marriage ;  so  that,  if  her 
father  do  not  provide  for  her,  it  is  probable  that  she 
will  not  be  provided  for  at  all.  As  to  marriage,  the 
opportunity  is  frequently  not  offered  to  a  woman  ;  and 


162  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.  [ESSAY  II. 

a  father  if  he  can,  should  so  provide  for  his  daughter 
as  to  enable  her,  in  single  life,  to  live  in  a  state  of 
comfort  not  greatly  inferior  to  her  brother's.  The  re- 
mark that  the  custom  of  preferring  sons  is  general,  and 
therefore  that  when  a  couple  marry  the  inequality  is 
adjusted,  applies  only  to  the  case  of  those  who  do 
marry.  The  number  of  women  who  do  not  is  great ; 
and  a  parent  cannot  foresee  his  daughter's  lot.  Be- 
sides, since  marriage  is  (and  is  reasonably)  a  great  ob- 
ject to  a  woman,  and  is  desirable  both  for  women  and 
for  men,  there  appears  a  propriety  in  increasing  the 
probability  of  marriage  by  giving  to  women  such 
property  as  shall  constitute  an  additional  inducement 
to  marriage  in  the  men.  I  shall  hardly  be  suspected  of 
recommending  persons  to  "marry  for  money."  My 
meaning  is  this  :  A  young  man  possesses  five  hundred 
a  year,  and  lives  on  a  corresponding  scale.  He  is  at- 
tached to  a  woman  who  has  but  one  hundred  a  year. 
This  young  man  sees  that  if  he  marries,  he  must  re- 
duce his  scale  of  living  ;  and  the  consideration  operates 
(I  do  not  say  that  it  ought  to  operate)  to  deter  him 
from  marriage.  But  if  the  young  man  possessed  three 
hundred  a  year  and  lived  accordingly,  and  if  the  object 
of  his  attachment  possessed  three  hundred  a  year  also, 
he  would  not  be  prevented  from  marrying  her  by  the 
fear  of  being  obliged  to  diminish  his  system  of  ex- 
penditure. Just  complaints  are  made  of  those  half- 
concealed  blandishments  by  which  some  women  who 
need  '  -  a  settlement ' '  endeavor  to  procure  it  by  mar- 
riage. Those  blandishments  would  become  more 
tempered  with  propriety,  if  one  great  motive  was 
taken  away  by  the  possession  of  a  competence  of  their 
own. 

Perhaps  it  is  remarkable,  that  the  obligation  not  to 
accumulate  great  property  for  ourselves  or  our  chil- 
dren, is  so  little  enforced  by  the  writers  on  morality. 


CHAP.    III.]  INEQUALITY  OF  PROPERTY.  163 

None  will  dispute  that  such  accumulation  is  both  un- 
wise and  unkind.  Every  one  acknowledges  too  that 
the  general  evils  of  the  existing  inequality  of  property 
are  enormously  great ;  yet  how  few  insist  upon  those 
means  by  which,  more  than  by  any  other  private 
means,  these  evils  may  be  diminished  !  If  all  men  de- 
clined to  retain,  or  refrained  from  acquiring,  more 
than  is  likely  to  be  beneficial  to  their  families  and 
themselves,  the  pernicious  inequality  of  property 
would  quickly  be  diminished  or  destroyed.  There  is  a 
motive  upon  the  individual  to  do  this,  which  some 
public  reformations  do  not  offer.  He  who  contributes 
almost  nothing  to  diminish  the  general  mischiefs  of 
extreme  poverty  and  extreme  wealth,  may  yet  do  so 
much  benefit  to  his  own  connections  as  shall  greatly 
overpay  him  for  the  sacrifice  of  vanity  or  inclination. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  claim  too  of  jus- 
tice. A  man  who  has  acquired  a  reasonable  sufficiency, 
and  who  nevertheless  retains  his  business  to  acquire 
more  than  a  sufficiency,  practises  a  sort  of  injustice 
towards  another  who  needs  his  means  of  gain.  There 
are  always  many  who  cannot  enjoy  the  comforts  of 
life,  because  others  are  improperly  occupying  the 
means  by  which  those  comforts  are  to  be  obtained.  Is 
it  the  part  of  a  Christian  to  do  this  ? — even  abating  the 
consideration  that  he  is  injuring  himself  by  withholding 
comforts  from  another. 


I64  LITIGATION — ARBITRATION.  [ESSAY    II. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
LITIGATION— ARBITRATION. 

Practice  of  early  Christians — Evils  of  Litigation — Efficiency  of 
Arbitration. 

In  the  third  Essay,*  some  enquiry  will  be  attempted, 
as  to  whether  justice  may  not  often  be  administered 
between  contending  parties,  or  to  public  offenders,  by 
some  species  of  arbitration  rather  than  by  law ; — 
whether  a  gradual  substitution  of  equity  for  fixed 
rules  of  decision,  is  not  congruous  alike  with  philoso- 
phy and  morals. — The  present  chapter,  however,  and 
that  which  succeeds  it,  proceed  upon  the  supposition  that 
the  administration  of  justice  continues  in  its  present 
state. 

The  question  for  an  individual,  when  he  has  some 
cause  of  dispute  with  another  respecting  property  or 
rights  is,  By  what  means  ought  I  to  endeavor  to  adjust 
it?  Three  modes  of  adjustment  may  be  supposed  to 
be  offered  :  Private  arrangement  with  the  other  party 
— Reference  to  impartial  men — and  law.  Private  ad- 
justment is  the  best  mode  ;  arbitration  is  good  ;  law  is 
good  only  when  it  is  the  sole  alternative. 

The  litigiousness  of  some  of  the  early  Christians  at 
Corinth  gave  occasion  to  the  energetic  expostulation  ; 
'  ■  Dare  any  of  you,  having  a  matter  against  another, 
go  to  law  before  the  unjust,  and  not  before  the  saints? 
Do  ye  not  know  that  the  saints  shall  judge  the  world? 
And  if  the  world  shall  be  judged  by  you,  are  ye  un- 
worthy to  judge  the  smallest  matters?  Know  ye  not 
that  we  shall  judge  angels?  How  much  more  things 
that  pertain  to  this  life?  If  then,  ye  have  judgments 
of  things  pertaining  to  this  life,  set  them  to  judge  who 

*  Chap.  X. 


CHAP.    IV.]  LITIGATION — ARBITRATION.  165 

are  least  esteemed  in  the  church.  I  speak  to  your 
shame.  Is  it  so  that  there  is  not  a  wise  man  among 
you  ?  No,  not  one  that  shall  be  able  to  j  udge  between 
his  brethren  ?  But  brother  goeth  to  law  with  brother, 
and  that  before  the  unbelievers.  Now  therefore  there 
is  utterly  a  fault  among  you,  because  ye  go  to  law  one 
with  another.  Why  do  ye  not  rather  take  wrong? 
Why  do  ye  not  rather  suffer  yourselves  to  be  de- 
frauded ?  "  *  Upon  this,  one  observation  is  especially 
to  be  remembered  :  that  a  great  part  of  its  pointedness 
of  reprehension  is  directed,  not  so  much  to  litigation, 
as  to  litigation  before  pagans.  "  Brother  goeth  to  law 
with  brother,  and  that  before  the  unbelievers. ' '  The 
impropriety  of  exposing  the  disagreements  of  Chris- 
tians in  pagan  courts,  was  manifest  and  great.  They 
who  had  rejected  the  dominant  religion,  for  a  religion 
of  which  one  peculiar  characteristic  was  good  will  and 
unanimity,  were  especially  called  upon  to  exhibit  in 
their  conduct  an  illustration  of  its  purer  principles. 
Few  things,  not  grossly  vicious,  would  bring  upon 
Christians  and  upon  Christianity  itself  so  much  re- 
proach as  a  litigiousness  which  could  not  or  would  not 
find  arbitration  amongst  themselves.  The  advice  of 
the  apostle  appears  to  have  been  acted  upon  :  ' '  The 
primitive  church,  which  was  always  zealous  to  recon- 
cile the  brethren  and  to  procure  pardon  for  the  offender 
from  the  person  offended,  did  ordain,  according  to  the 
epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  that  the  saints 
or  Christians  should  not  maintain  a  process  of  law  one 
against  the  other  at  the  bar  of  tribunals  of  infidels. ' '  f 
The  Christian  of  the  present  day  is  differently  circum- 
stanced, because,  though  he  appeals  to  the  law,  he 
does  not  appeal  to  pagan  judges  ;   and  therefore  so 

*  1  Cor.  vi. 

f  Ryeaut's  L,ives  of  the  Popes,  fol.   2d,  ed.  1688,  Introd.    p.  2. 


1 66  LITIGATION — ARBITRATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

much  of  the  apostle's  censure  as  was  occasioned  by  the 
paganism  of  the  courts,  does  not  apply  to  us. 

To  this  indeed  there  is  an  exception  founded  upon 
analogy.  If  at  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation, 
two  of  the  reformers  had  carried  a  dispute  respecting 
property  before  Romish  courts,  they  would  have  come 
under  some  portion  of  that  reprobation  which  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  Corinthians.  Certainly,  when  persons 
profess  such  a  love  for  religious  purity  and  excellence 
that  they  publicly  withdraw  from  the  general  religion 
of  a  people,  there  ought  to  be  so  much  purity  and  ex- 
cellence amongst  them,  that  it  would  be  needless  to 
have  recourse  to  those  from  whom  they  had  separated, 
to  adjust  their  disputes.  The  Catholic  of  those  days 
might  reasonably  have  turned  upon  such  reformers  and 
said,  "Is  it  so  that  there  is  not  a  wise  man  among  you, 
no  not  one  that  shall  be  able  to  judge  between  his 
brethren?"  And  if  indeed,  no  such  wise  man  was  to 
be  found,  it  might  safely  be  concluded  that  their  refor- 
mation was  an  empty  name. — For  the  same  reasons, 
those  who,  in  the  present  times,  think  it  right  to  with- 
draw from  other  protestant  churches  in  order  to  main- 
tain sounder  doctrines  or  purer  practice,  cast  reproach 
upon  their  own  community  if  they  cannot  settle  their 
disputes  amongst  themselves.  Pretensions  to  sound- 
ness and  purity  are  of  little  avail  if  they  do  not  enable 
those  who  make  them  to  repose  in  one  another  such 
confidence  as  this.  Were  I  a  Wesleyan  or  a  Baptist,  I 
should  think  it  discreditable  to  go  to  law  with  one  of 
my  own  brotherhood. 

But,  though  the  apostle' §  prohibition  of  going  to  law 
appears  to  have  been  founded  upon  the  paganism  of 
the  courts,  his  language  evidently  conveys  disapproba- 
tion, generally,  of  appeals  to  the  law.  He  insists  upon 
the  propriety  of  adjusting  disputes  by  arbitration. 
Christians,  he  says,  ought  not  to  be  unworthy  to  judge 


CHAP.    IV.]  IJTIGATION— ARBITRATION.  167 

the  smallest  matters  ;  and  so  emphatically  does  he  in- 
sist upon  the  truth,  that  their  religion  ought  to 
capacitate  them  to  act  as  arbitrators,  that  he  inti- 
mates that  even  a  small  advance  in  Christian  excel- 
lence is  sufficient  for  such  a  purpose  as  this  : — "Set 
them  to  judge  who  are  least  esteemed  in  the  church." 
It  will  perhaps  be  acknowledged  that  when  Christianity 
shall  possess  its  proper  influence  over  us,  there  will  be 
little  reason  to  recur,  for  adjustment  of  our  disagree- 
ments, to  fixed  rules  of  law.  And  though  this  influ- 
ence is  so  far  short  of  universal  prevalence,  who  can- 
not find  amongst  those  to  whom  he  may  have  access, 
some  who  are  capable  of  deciding  rightly  and  justly  ? 
The  state  of  that  Christian  country  must  indeed  be  bad, 
if  it  contains  not,  even  in  every  little  district,  one  that 
is  able  to  judge  between  his  brethren. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  cases  in  which  the  Christian 
may  properly  appeal  to  the  law.  He  may  have  an  an- 
tagonist who  can  in  no  other  manner  be  induced  to  be 
just,  or  to  act  aright.  Under  some  such  circumstances 
Paul  himself  pursued  a  similar  course  :  "I  appeal  unto 
Caesar." — "  Is  it  lawful  for  you  to  scourge  a  man  that 
is  a  Roman,  and  uncondemned  ?"  And  when  he  had 
been  illegally  taken  into  custody  he  availed  himself  of 
his  legal  privileges,  and  made  the  magistrates  ' '  come 
themselves  and  fetch  him  out."  There  are,  besides,  in 
the  present  condition  of  jurisprudence,  some  cases  in 
which  the  rule  of  justice  depends  upon  the  rule  of  law 
— so  that  a  thing  is  just  or  not  just  according  as  the 
law  determines.  In  such  cases,  neither  party,  however 
well  disposed,  may  be  able  distinctly  to  tell  what  justice 
requires  until  the  law  informs  them.  Even  then, 
however,  there  are  better  means  of  procedure  than  by 
prosecuting  suits.    The  parties  may  obtain  '  'Opinions. ' ' 

Besides  these  considerations  there  are  others  which 
powerfully  recommend  arbitration  in  preference  to  law. 


168  LITIGATION — ARBITRATION.  [ESSAY    II. 

The  evils  of  litigation,  from  which  arbitration  is  in  a 
great  degree  exempt,  are  great. 

Expense  is  an  important  item.  A  reasonable  man 
desires  of  course  to  obtain  justice  as  inexpensively  as 
he  can  ;  and  the  great  cost  of  obtaining  it  in  courts  of 
law,  is  a  powerful  reason  for  preferring  arbitration. 

Legal  Injustice. — He  who  desires  that  justice  should 
be  dispensed  between  him  and  another,  should  suffi- 
ciently bear  in  mind  how  much  injustice  is  inflicted  by 
the  law.  We  have  seen  in  some  of  the  preceding 
chapters  that  law  is  often  very  wide  of  equity  ;  and  he 
who  desires  to  secure  himself  from  an  inequitable  de- 
cision, possesses  a  powerful  motive  to  prefer  arbitra- 
tion. The  technicalities  of  the  law  and  the  artifices 
of  lawyers  are  almost  innumerable.  Sometimes,  when 
a  party  thinks  he  is  on  the  eve  of  obtaining  a  just  ver^ 
diet,  he  is  suddenly  disappointed  and  his  cause  is  lost 
by  some  technical  defect — the  omission  of  a  word  or 
the  mis-spelling  of  a  name  ;  matters  which  in  no  de- 
gree affect  the  validity  of  his  claims.  If  the  only  ad- 
vantage which  arbitration  offers  to  disagreeing  parties, 
was  exemption  from  these  deplorable  evils,  it  would 
be  a  substantial  and  sufficient  argument  in  its  favor. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  that  justice  would 
generally  be  administered  by  a  reference  to  two  or 
three  upright  and  disinterested  men.  When  facts  are 
laid  before  such  persons,  they  are  seldom  at  a  loss  to 
decide  what  justice  requires.  Its  principles  are  not  so 
critical  or  remote  as  usually  to  require  much  labor  of 
research  to  discover  what  they  dictate.  It  might  be 
concluded,  therefore,  even  if  experience  did  not  con- 
firm it,  that  an  arbitration,  if  it  did  not  decide  abso- 
lutely aright,  would  at  least  come  to  as  just  a  decision 
as  can  be  attained  by  human  means.  But  experience 
does  confirm  the  conclusion.  It  is  known  that  the 
Society  of  Friends  never  permits  its  members  to  carry 


CHAP.    IV.]  UTIGATION— ARBITRATION.  169 

disagreements  with  one  another  before  courts  of  law. 
All,  if  they  continue  in  the  Society  must  submit  to 
arbitration.  And  what  is  the  consequence  ?  They 
find,  practically,  that  arbitration  is  the  best  mode  : 
that  justice  is  in  fact  administered  by  it,  administered 
more  satisfactorily  and  with  fewer  exceptions  than  in 
legal  courts.  No  one  pretends  to  dispute  this.  In- 
deed if  it  were  disputable,  it  may  be  presumed  that 
this  community  would  abandon  the  practice.  They 
adhere  to  it  because  it  is  the  most  Christian  practice 
and  the  best. 

Inquietude. — The  expense,  the  injustice,  the  delays 
and  vexations  which  are  attendant  upon  lawsuits, 
bring  altogether  a  degree  of  inquietude  upon  the  mind 
which  greatly  deducts  from  the  enjoyment  of  life,  and 
from  the  capacity  to  attend  with  composure  to  other 
and  perhaps  more  important  concerns.  If  to  this  we 
add  the  heart-burnings  and  ill-will  which  suits  fre- 
quently occasion,  a  considerable  sum  of  evil  is  in  this 
respect  presented  to  us  :  a  sum  of  evil,  be  it  remem- 
bered, from  which  arbitration  is  in  a  great  degree 
exempt. 

Upon  the  whole,  arbitration  is  recommended  by 
such  various  and  powerful  arguments,  that  when  it  is 
proposed  by  one  of  two  contending  parties  and  objected 
to  by  the  other,  there  is  reason  to  presume  that,  with 
that  other,  justice  is  not  the  paramount  object  of 
desire. 


170  THE  MORALITY  OF  I,EGAI,  PRACTICE.      [ESSAY   II. 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  MORALITY  OF  LEGAL  PRACTICE. 

Complexity  of  law — Professional  untruths — Defences  of  legal 
practice — Effects  of  legal  practice  :  Seduction  :  Theft  :  Pecu- 
lation— Pleading — The  duties  of  the  profession — Effects  of 
legal  practice  on  the  profession,  and  on  the  public. 

If  it  should  be  asked  why,  in  a  book  of  general 
morality,  the  writer  selects  for  observation  the  practice 
of  a  particular  profession,  the  answer  is  simply  this, 
that  the  practice  of  this  particular  profession  pecu- 
liarly needs  it.  It  peculiarly  needs  to  be  brought  into 
juxtaposition  with  sound  principles  of  morality.  Be- 
sides this,  an  honest  comparison  of  the  practice  with 
the  principles  will  afford  useful  illustration  of  the 
requisitions  of  virtue. 

That  public  opinion  pronounces  that  there  is,  in  the 
ordinary  character  of  legal  practice,  much  that  is  not 
reconcilable  with  rectitude,  can  need  no  proof.  The 
public  opinion  could  scarcely  become  general  unless  it 
were  founded  upon  truth,  and  that  it  is  general  is 
evinced  by  the  language  of  all  ranks  of  men  ;  from  that 
of  him  who  writes  a  treatise  of  morality,  to  that  of  him 
who  familiarly  uses  a  censorious  proverb.  It  may 
reasonably  be  concluded  that  when  the  professional 
conduct  of  a  particular  set  of  men  is  characterized 
peculiarly  with  sacrifices  of  rectitude,  there  must  be 
some  general  and  peculiar  cause.  There  appears  noth- 
ing in  the  profession,  as  such,  to  produce  this  effect  — 
nothing  in  taking  a  part  in  the  administration  of  jus- 
tice which  necessarily  leads  men  away  from  the  regard 
to  justice.  How  then  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact  as 
it  exists,  or  where  shall  we  primarily  lay  the  censure  ? 
Is  it  the  fault  of  the  men,  or  of  the  institutions  ;  of  the 
lawyers  or  of  the  law  ?  Doubtless  the  original  fault  is 
in  the  law. 


CHAP  V.]        THE  MORALITY  OF  I.EGAI,  PRACTICE.  171 

Wherever  fixed  rules  of  deciding  controversies  be- 
tween man  and  man,  or  fixed  rules  of  administering 
punishment  to  public  offenders  are  established — there 
it  is  inevitable  that  equity  will  sometimes  be  sacrificed 
to  rules.  These  rules  are  laws,  that  is,  they  must  be 
uniformly,  and  for  the  most  part  literally  applied  ;  and 
this  literal  application  (as  we  have  already  had  mani- 
fold occasion  to  show,)  is  sometimes  productive  of 
practical  injustice.  Since,  then,  the  legal  profession 
employ  themselves  in  enforcing  this  literal  application 
— since  they  habitually  exert  themselves  to  do  this 
with  little  regard  to  the  equity  of  the  result,  they  can- 
not fail  to  deserve  and  to  obtain  the  character  of  a  pro- 
fession that  sacrifices  rectitude.  I  know  not  that  this 
is  evitable  so  long  as  numerous  and  fixed  rules  are 
adopted  in  the  administration  of  justice. 

But  whilst  thus  the  original  cause  of  the  sacrifice  of 
virtue  amongst  legal  men  is  to  be  sought  in  legal  insti- 
tutions, it  cannot  be  doubted  that  they  are  themselves 
chargeable  with  greatly  adding  to  the  evils  which  these 
institutions  occasion.  This  is  just  what,  in  the  present 
state  of  human  virtue,  we  might  expect,  lawyers 
familiarize  to  their  minds  the  notion,  that  whatever  is 
legally  right  is  right ;  and  when  they  have  once  habit- 
uated themselves  to  sacrifice  the  manifest  dictates  of 
equity  to  law,  where  shall  they  stop  ?  If  a  material 
informality  in  an  instument  is  to  them  sufficient  justifi- 
cation of  a  sacrifice  of  these  dictates,  they  will  soon 
sacrifice  them  because  a  word  has  been  mis-spelt  by  an 
attorney's  clerk.  When  they  have  gone  thus  far,  they 
will  go  further.  The  practice  of  disregarding  rectitude 
in  courts  of  justice  will  become  habitual.  They  will 
go  onward,  from  insisting  upon  legal  technicalities  to 
an  endeavor  to  pervert  the  law,  then  to  the  giving  a 
false  coloring  to  facts,  and  then  onward  and  still  on- 
ward until  witnesses  are  abashed  and  confounded,  until 


172  THE   MORALITY  OF   LEGAI,   PRACTICE.      [ESSAY   II. 

juries  are  misled  by  impassioned  appeals  to  their  feel- 
ings, until  deliberate  untruths  are  solemnly  averred, 
until,  in  a  word,  all  the  pitiable  and  degrading  specta- 
cles are  exhibited  which  are  now  exhibited  in  legal 
practice. 

But  when  we  say  that  the  original  cause  of  this  un- 
happy system  is  to  be  found  in  the  law  itself,  is  it  tan- 
tamount to  a  justification  of  the  system  ?  No :  if  it 
were,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  justify  any  departure 
from  rectitude — it  would  be  sufficient  to  justify  any 
crime,  to  be  able  to  show  that  the  perpetrator  possessed 
strong  temptation.  Strong  temptation  is  undoubtedly 
placed  before  the  legal  practitioner.  This  should  abate 
our  censure,  but  it  should  not  cause  us  to  be  silent. 

We  affirm  that  a  lawyer  cannot  morally  enforce  the 
application  of  legal  rules,  without  regard  to  the  claims 
of  equity  in  the  particular  case. 

If  it  has  been  seen,  in  the  preceding  chapters,  that 
morality  is  paramount  to  law  ;  if  it  has  been  seen 
that  there  are  many  instances  in  which  private  persons 
are  morally  obliged  to  forego  their  legal  pretensions, 
then  it  is  equally  clear  that  a  lawyer  is  obliged  to  hold 
morality  as  paramount  to  law  in  his  own  practice.  If 
one  man  may  not  urge  an  unjust  legal  pretension,  an- 
other may  not  assist  him  in  urging  it.  No  man  it  may 
be  hoped  will  say  it  is  the  lawyer's  only  business  to 
apply  the  law.  Men  cannot  so  cheaply  exempt  them- 
selves from  the  obligations  of  morality.  Yet  here  the 
questions  is  really  suspended  ;  for  if  the  busi?iess  of  the 
profession  does  not  justify  a  disregard  of  morality,  it  is 
not  capable  of  justification.  Suspended  !  It  is  lament- 
able that  such  a  question  can  exist.  For  to  what  does 
the  alternative  lead  us?  Is  a  man,  when  he  under- 
takes a  client's  business,  at  liberty  to  advance  his  in- 
terest by  every  method,  good  or  bad,  which  the  law 
will  not  punish  ?     If  he  is,  there  is  an  end  of  morality. 


CHAP.  V.]        THE  MORALITY  OF  tKGAI,  PRACTICE.  I73 

If  he  is  not,  something  must  limit  and  restrict  him  ;  and 
that  something  is  the  moral  law. 

Of  every  custom,  however  indefensible,  some  advo- 
cates offer  themselves  ;  and  some  accordingly  have  at- 
tempted to  justify  the  practice  of  the  bar.*  Of  that 
particular  item  in  the  practice,  which  consists  in  utter- 
ing untruths  in  order  to  serve  a  client,  Dr.  Paley  has 
been  the  defender.  ■ '  There  are  falsehoods, ' '  says  he, 
"which  are  not  criminal ;  as  where  no  one  is  deceived, 
which  is  the  case  with  -an  advocate  in  asserting  the 
justice,  or  his  belief  of  the  justice,  of  his  client's 
cause."  It  is  plain  that  in  support  of  this  position 
one  argument,  and  only  one  can  be  urged,  and  that 
one  has  been  selected.  ' '  No  confidence  is  destroyed, 
because  none  was  reposed  ;  no  promise  to  speak  the 
truth  is  violated,  because  none  was  given  or  understood 
to  be  given,  "f  The  defence  is  not  very  creditable 
even  if  it  were  valid  :  it  defends  men  from  the  im- 
putation of  falsehood  because  their  falsehoods  are  so 
habitual  that  no  one  gives  them  credit  ! 

But  the  defence  is  not  valid.  Of  this  the  reader  may 
satisfy  himself  by  considering  why,  if  no  one  ever  be- 
lieves what  advocates  say,  they  continue  to  speak. 
They  would  not,  year  after  year,  persist  in  uttering  un- 
truths in  our  courts,  without  attaining  an  object,  and 
knowing  that  they  wrould  not  attain  it.  If  no  one  ever 
in  fact  believed  them,  they  w7ould  cease  to  asseverate. 
They  do  not  love  falsehood  for  its  own  sake,  and 
utter  it  gratuitously  and  for  nothing.  The  custom  it- 
self, therefore,  disproves  the  argument  that  is  brought 
to  defend  it.  Whenever  that  defence  becomes  valid — 
whenever  it  is  really  true  that  ' '  no  confidence  is  re- 

*  I  speak  of  the  bar,  because  that  branch  of  the  profession 
offers  the  nfost  convenient  illustration  of  the  subject.  The  rea- 
sonings will  generally  apply  to  other  branches. 

f  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  3.  p.  1.  c.  15. 


174  *HE   MORALITY  OF  I,EGAI,   PRACTICE.       [  ESSAY  II. 

posed"  in  advocates,  they  will  cease  to  use  falsehood, 
for  it  will  have  lost  its  motive.  But  the  real  practice  is 
to  mingle  falsehood  and  truth  together,  and  so  to  in- 
volve the  one  with  the  other  that  the  jury  cannot 
easily  separate  them.  The  jury  know  that  some  of  the 
pleader's  statements  are  true,  and  these  they  believe. 
Now  he  makes  other  statements  wTith  the  same  deliber- 
ate emphasis  ;  and  how  shall  the  jury  know  whether 
these  are  false  or  true  ?  How  shall  they  discover  the 
point  at  which  they  shall  begin  to  ' '  repose  no  confi- 
dence ?' '  Knowing  that  a  part  is  true,  they  cannot  al- 
ways know  that  another  part  is  not  true.  That  it  is 
the  pleader's  design  to  persuade  them  of  the  truth  of 
all  he  affirms,  is  manifest.  Suppose  an  advocate  when 
he  rose  should  say,  "Gentlemen,  I  am  now  going  to 
speak  the  truth  ;"  and  after  narrating  the  facts  of  the 
case  should  say,  "Gentlemen,  I  am  now  going  to  ad- 
dress you  with  fictions."  Why  would  not  an  advocate 
do  this  ?  Because  then  no  confidence  would  be  reposed, 
which  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  he  pursues  his 
present  plan  because  some  confidence  is  reposed  ;  and 
this  decides  the  question.  The  decision  should  not  be 
concealed — that  the  advocate  who  employs  untruths  in 
his  pleadings,  does  really  and  most  strictly,  lie. 

And  even  if  no  one  ever  did  believe  an  advocate,  his 
false  declarations  would  still  be  lies,  because  he  always 
professes  to  speak  the  truth.  This  indeed  is  true  upon 
the  Archdeacon's  own  showing;  for  he  says,  "Who- 
ever seriously  addresses  his  discourse  to  another,  tacitly 
promises  to  speak  the  truth."  The  case  is  very  differ- 
ent from  others  which  he  proposes  as  parallel — "para- 
bles, fables,  jests."  In  these,  the  speaker  does  not 
profess  to  state  facts.  But  the  pleader  does  profess 
to  state  facts.  He  intends  and  endeavors  to  mis- 
lead. His  untruths  therefore  are  lies  to  him  whether 
they   are  believed    or   not  ;    just   as,    in   vulgar   life, 


CHAP.    V.]        THE  MORAUTY  OE  I.ECAI,  PRACTICE.  175 

a  man  whose  falsehoods  are  so  notorious  that  no  one  gives 
him  credit,  is  not  the  less  a  liar  than  if  he  were  believed. 
Gisborne  is  another  defender  of  legal  practice,  and  as- 
sumes a  wider  ground  of  justification.  "The  stand- 
ard, ' '  says  he,  "to  which  the  advocate  refers  the  cause 
of  his  client,  is  not  the  law  of  reason  nor  the  law  of 
God,  but  the  law  of  the  land.  His  peculiar  and  proper 
object  is  not  to  prove  the  side  of  the  question  which 
he  maintains  morally  right,  but  legally  right.  The 
law  offers  its  protection  only  on  certain  preliminary 
conditions  ;  it  refuses  to  take  cognizance  of  injuries  or 
to  enforce  redress,  unless  the  one  be  proved  in  the 
specific  manner  and  the  other  claimed  in  the  precise 
form,  which  it  prescribes  ;  and  consequently,  whatever 
be  the  pleader's  opinion  of  his  cause,  he  is  guilty  of  no 
breach  of  truth  and  justice  in  defeating  the  preten- 
sions of  the  persons  whom  he  opposes,  by  evincing  that 
they  have  not  made  good  the  terms  on  which 
alone  they  could  be  legally  entitled,  on  which  alone 
they  could  suppose  themselves  entitled,  to  success."* 
There  is  something  specious  in  this  reasoning,  but 
what  is  its  amount  ? — that  if  the  laws  of  a  country 
proceed  upon  such  and  such  maxims,  they  exempt  us 
from  the  authority  of  the  laws  of  God.  We  arrive  at 
this  often  refuted  doctrine  at  last.  Either  the  acts  of 
a  legislature  may  suspend  the  obligations  of  morality 
or  they  may  not.  If  they  may,  there  is  an  end  of  that 
morality  which  is  founded  upon  the  Divine  will :  if  they 
may  not,  the  argument  of  Gisborne  is  a  fallacy.  But 
in  truth  he  himself  shows  its  fallaciousness  :  he  says, 
1 '  If  a  cause  should  present  itself  of  an  aspect  so  dark 
as  to  leave  the  advocate  no  reasonable  doubt  of  its 
being  founded  in  iniquity  or  baseness,  or  to  justify 
extremely  strong  suspicions  of  its  evil  nature  and 
tendency,  he  is  bound  in  the  sight  of  God  to  refuse  all 
*  Duties  of  men.     The  Legal  Profession. 


176  THE  MORAUTY  OE  I.EGAI,  PRACTICE.     [ESSAY  II, 

connection  with  the  business. ' '  Why  is  he  thus  bound 
to  refuse  ?  Because  he  will  otherwise  violate  the  moral 
law  :  and  this  is  the  very  reason  why  he  is  bound  in 
other  cases.  Observe  too  the  inconsistency  :  first  we 
are  told  that  whatever  be  the  pleader's  opinion  of  a 
cause,  "  he  is  guilty  of  no  breach  of  truth  and  justice  " 
in  advocating  it ;  and  afterwards,  that  if  the  cause  is 
of  an  ' '  evil  nature  and  tendency  ' '  he  may  not  advo- 
cate it  !  That  such  reasoning  does  not  prove  what  it 
is  designed  to  prove  is  evident ;  but  it  proves  some- 
thing else — that  the  practice  cannot  be  defended.  Such 
reasoning  w7ould  not  be  advanced  if  better  could  be 
found.  Let  us  not,  however  seem  to  avail  ourselves 
of  a  writer's  words  without  reference  to  his  meaning. 
The  meaning  in  the  present  instance  is  clearly  this — 
that  a  pleader,  generally,  may  undertake  a  vicious 
cause  ;  but  that  if  it  be  very  vicious,  he  must  refrain. 
You  may  abet  an  act  of  a  certain  shade  of  iniquity,  but 
not  if  it  be  of  a  certain  shade  deeper  :  you  may  violate 
the  moral  law  to  a  certain  extent,  but  not  to  every  ex- 
tent. To  him  who  w7ould  recommend  rectitude  in  its 
purity,  few  reasonings  are  more  satisfactory  than  such 
as  these.  They  prove  the  truth  which  they  assail  by 
evincing  that  it  cannot  be  disproved. 

Dr.  Johnson  tried  a  shorter  course  :  -  -  You  do  not 
know  a  cause  to  be  good  or  bad  till  the  judge  deter- 
mines it.  An  argument  that  does  not  convince  you 
may  convince  the  judge  to  whom  you  urge  it,  and  if 
it  does  convince  him,  why  then  he  is  right  and  you  are 
wrong."  This  is  satisfactory.  It  is  always  satisfac- 
tory to  perceive  that  a  powerful  intellect  can  find 
nothing  but  idle  sophistry  to  urge  against  the  obliga- 
tions of  virtue.  One  other  argument  is  this  :  Eminent 
barristers,  it  is  said,  should  not  be  too  scrupulous,  be- 
cause clients  might  fear  their  causes  would  be  rejected 
by  virtuous  pleaders,  and  might  therefore  go  to  "  needy 


CHAP.   V.]       THE  MORALITY  OE  LEGAIv  PRACTICE.  1 77 

and  unprincipled  chicaners."  Why,  if  their  causes 
were  good,  virtuous  pleaders  would  undertake  them; 
and  if  they  were  bad,  it  matters  not  how  soon  they 
were  discountenanced.  In  a  right  state  of  things,  the 
very  circumstance  that  only  an  ' '  unprincipled  chi- 
caner"  would  undertake  a  particular  cause,  would  go 
far  towards  procuring  a  verdict  against  it.  Besides,  it 
is  a  very  loose  morality  that  recommends  good  men  to 
do  improper  things  lest  they  should  be  done  by  the 
bad. 

Seeing  therefore  that  no  tolerable  defence  can  be  ad- 
duced of  the  ordinary  legal  practice,  let  us  consider  for 
a  moment  what  are  its   practical  results. 

A  civil  action  is  brought  into  court,  and  evidence 
has  been  heard  which  satisfies  every  man  that  the 
plaintiff  is  entitled  in  justice  to  a  verdict.  It  is,  on  the 
part  of  the  defendant,  a  clear  case  of  dishonesty.  Sud- 
denly, the  pleader  discovers  that  there  is  some  verbal 
flaw  in  a  document,  some  technical  irregularity  in  the 
proceedings — and  the  plaintiff  loses  his  cause.  The 
public  are  disappointed  in  their  expectations  of  justice  ; 
the  jury  and  the  court  are  grieved  ;  and  the  unhappy 
sufferer  retires,  injured  and  wronged — without  redress 
or  hope  of  redress.  Can  this  be  right  ?  Can  it  be 
sufficient  to  justify  a  man  in  this  conduct,  to  urge  that 
such  things  are  his  business — the  means  by  which  he 
obtains  his  living  ?  The  same  excuse  would  justify  a 
corsair,  or  a  troop  of  Arabian  banditti  which  plunders 
the  caravan.  Yet  indefensible,  immoral,  as  this  con- 
duct is,  it  is  the  every  day  practice  of  the  profession  ; 
and  the  amount  of  injustice  which  is  inflicted  by  this 
practice  is  enormous.  The  plea  that  such  are  the  rules 
of  the  law  is  not  admissible.  Whatever  utility  we  may 
be  disposed  to  allow  to  the  uniform  application  of  the 
law,  it  will  not  justify  such  conduct  as  this.  The  in- 
tegrity of  the  law  would  not  have  been  violated,  though 


178  THE  MORALITY  OE  LEGAL  PRACTICE.      [ ESSAY  II. 

the  pleader  had  not  pointed  out  the  mis-spelling,  for 
example,  of  a  word.  For  a  judge  to  refuse  to  allow 
the  law  to  take  its  course  after  the  mistake  has  been 
urged,  is  one  thing  ;  for  a  pleader  to  detect  and  to  urge 
it,  is  another.  The  judge  may  not  be  able  to  regard 
the  equity  of  the  case  without  sacrificing  the  uniform 
operation  of  the  law.  But  if  the  inadvertency  is  not 
pointed  out,  that  uniform  operation  is  perfect  though 
equity  be  awarded.  There  is  no  excuse  for  thus  in- 
flicting injustice.  It  is  an  act  of  pure  gratuitous  mis- 
chief :  an  act  not  required  by  law,  an  act  condemned 
by  morality,  an  act  possessing  no  apology  but  that  the 
agent  is  tempted  by  the  gains  of  his  profession. 

An  unhappy  father  seeks,  in  a  court  of  justice,  some 
redress  for  the  misery  which  a  seducer  has  inflicted 
upon  his  family  ;  a  redress  which,  if  he  were  success- 
ful, is  deplorably  inadequate,  both  as  a  recompense  to 
the  sufferers  and  as  a  punishment  to  the  criminal. 
This  case  is  established,  and  it  is  manifest  that  equity 
and  the  public  good  require  exemplary  damages. 
What  then  does  the  pleader  do  ?  He  stands  up  and 
employs  every  contrivance  to  prevent  the  jury  from 
awarding  these  damages.  He  eloquently  endeavors  to 
persuade  them  that  the  act  involved  little  guilt ;  casts  un- 
deserved imputations  upon  the  immediate  sufferer  and 
upon  her  family  ;  jests,  and  banters,  and  sneers,  about  all 
the  evidence  of  the  case  :  imputes  bad  motives  (with- 
out truth  or  with  it)  to  the  prosecutor  ;  expatiates 
upon  the  little  property  (whether  it  be  little  or  much) 
which  the  seducer  possesses ;  by  these  and  by  such 
means  he  labors  to  prevent  this  injured  father  from 
obtaining  any  redress,  to  secure  the  criminal  from  all 
punishment,  and  to  encourage  in  other  men  the  crime 
itself.  Compassion,  justice,  morality,  the  public  good, 
everything  is  sacrified — to  what?  To  that  which, 
upon  such  a  subject,  it  were  a  shame  to  mention. 


CHAP.    V.]         THE  MORALITY  OF   EEGAE  PRACTICE.  179 

In  the  criminal  courts,  the  same  conduct  is  practised, 
and  with  the  same  indefensibility.  Can  it  be  neces- 
sary, or  ought  it  to  be  necessary,  to  insist  upon  the 
proposition — "If  it  be  right  that  offenders  should  be 
punished,  it  is  not  right  to  make  them  pass  with  im- 
punity." If  a  police  officer  has  seized  a  thief  and  car- 
ried him  to  prison,  every  one  knows  that  it  would  be 
vicious  in  me  to  effect  his  escape.  Yet  this  is  the 
every  day  practice  of  the  profession.  It  is  their  regu- 
lar and  constant  endeavor  to  prevent  justice  from  being 
administered  to  offenders.  Is  it  a  sufficient  justifica- 
tion of  preventing  the  execution  of  justice,  of  prevent- 
ing that  which  every  good  citizen  is  desirous  of  pro- 
moting— to  say  that  a  man  is  an  advocate  by  profes- 
sion ?  Is  the  circumstance  of  belonging  to  the  legal 
profession  a  good  reason  for  disregarding  those  duties 
which  are  obligatory  upon  every  other  man  ?  He  who 
wards  off  punishment  from  swindlers  and  robbers,  and 
sends  them  amongst  the  public  upon  the  work  of  fraud 
and  plunder  again,  surely  deserves  worse  of  his  coun- 
try than  many  a  hungry  man  who  filches  a  loaf  or  a 
trinket  from  a  stall.  As  to  employing  legal  artifices  or 
the  tactics  of  declamation  in  order  to  obtain  the  con- 
viction of  a  prisoner  w7hom  there  is  reason  to  believe  to 
be  innocent  ;  or  as  to  endeavoring  to  inflict  upon  him  a 
punishment  greater  than  his  deserts,  the  wickedness  is 
so  palpable  that  it  is  wonderful  that  even  the  power  of 
custom  protects  it  from  the  reprobation  of  the  world. 

In  Scotland,  where  the  criminal  process  is  in  some 
respects  superior  to  ours,  the  proportion  of  those 
prisoners  who  escape  punishment  on  account  of  ' '  tech- 
nical niceties, ' '  is  very  great.  Of  the  persons  acquitted 
in  our  courts,  at  least  o?ie  half  escape  from  technical 
niceties,  or  rules  of  evidence  which  give  advantage  to 
the   prisoner,  with   which,  in   the   other  part   of   the 


l8o  THE   MORALITY  OF  EEGAE  PRACTICE.       [ESSAY  II. 

island,  they  are  wholly  unacquainted."*  Is  not  this  a 
great  public  evil  ?  And  if  we  charge  that  evil  origi- 
nally upon  the  law,  is  it  warrantable,  is  it  morale  in 
the  advocate  actively  to  increase  and  extend  it  ? 

The  plea  that  it  is  of  consequence  that  law  should  be 
uniformly  administered,  does  not  suffice  to  justify  the 
pleader  in  criminal  any  more  than  in  civil  courts.  '  'A 
thief  was  caught  coming  out  of  a  house  in  Highbury 
Terrace,  with  a  watch  he  had  stolen  therein  upon  him. 
He  was  found  guilty  by  the  jury  upon  the  clearest  evi- 
dence of  the  theft ;  but  his  counsel  having  discovered 
that  he  was  charged  in  the  indictment  with  having 
stolen  a  watch,  the  property  of  the  owner  of  the  house, 
whereas  the  watch  really  belonged  to  his  daughter,  the 
prisoner  got  clear  off. ' '  f  The  pretext  of  the  value  of 
an  uniform  operation  of  the  law  will  not  avail  here. 
Suppose  the  counsel,  though  he  did  discover  the  watch 
was  the  daughter's,  had  not  insisted  upon  the  inaccur- 
acy, no  evil  would  have  ensued.  The  integrity  of  the 
law  w7ould  not  have  been  violated.  The  act  of  a  coun- 
sel therefore  in  such  a  case  is  simply  and  only  a  defeat 
of  public  justice,  an  injury  to  the  State,  an  encourage- 
ment to  thieves  ;  and  surely  there  is  no  reason,  either 
in  morals  or  in  common  sense,  why  any  particular  class  of 
men  should  be  privileged  thus  to  injure  the  community. 
The  wrife  of  a  respectable  tradesman  in  the  town  in 
which  I  live  was  left  a  widow  with  eight  or  ten  child- 
ren. She  employed  a  confidential  person  to  assist  in 
conducting  the  business.  The  business  was  flourish- 
ing ;  and  yet  at  the  end  of  every  year  she  was  surprised 
and  afflicted  to  find  that  her  profits  were  unaccountably 
small.  At  length  this  confidential  person  was  sus- 
pected of  peculation.  Money  was  marked  and  placed 
as  usual  under  his  care.     It  was  soon  missed  aud  found 

*  Remarks  on  the  Administration  of   Criminal    Justice  in 
Scotland,  etc. 
f  West.  Rev.  No.  8,  Art.  I. 


CHAP.    V.]        THE  MORALITY  OF   EEGAE  PRACTICE.  l8l 

upon  his  person  ;  and  when  the  police  searched  his 
house,  they  found  in  his  possession,  methodically 
stowed  away,  five  or  six  thousand  pounds,  the  accumu- 
lated plunder  of  years  !  This  cruel  and  atrocious  rob- 
ber found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  advocates,  who 
employed  every  artifice  of  defence,  who  had  recourse 
to  every  technicality  of  law,  to  screen  him  from  pun- 
ishment and  to  secure  for  him  the  quiet  possession  of 
his  plunder.  They  found  in  the  indictment  some 
word,  of  which  the  ordinary  and  the  legal  acceptation 
were  different  ;  and  the  indictment  was  quashed  ! 
Happily,  another  was  proof  against  the  casuistry,  and 
the  criminal  was  found  guilty. 

Will  it  be  said  that  pleaders  are  not  supposed  to 
know,  till  the  verdict  is  pronounced,  whether  a  pris- 
oner is  guilty  or  not  ?  If  this  were  true,  it  would  not 
avail  as  a  justification  ;  but,  in  reality,  it  is  only  a  sub- 
terfuge. In  this  very  case,  after  the  verdict  had  been 
pronounced,  after  the  prisoner's  guilt  had  been  ascer- 
tained, a  new  trial  was  obtained  ;  not  on  account  of 
any  doubt  in  the  evidence — that  was  unequivocal — but 
on  account  of  some  irregularity  in  passing  sentence. 
And  now  the  same  conduct  was  repeated.  Knowing 
that  the  prisoner  was  guilty,  advocates  still  exerted 
their  talents  and  eloquence  to  procure  impunity  for  him, 
nay  to  reward  him  at  the  expense  of  public  duty  and 
of  private  justice.  They  did  not  succeed  :  the  plun- 
derer was  transported  ;  but  their  want  of  success  does 
not  diminish  the  impropriety,  the  immorality,  of  their 
endeavors.  If,  by  the  trickery  of  law,  this  man  had 
obtained  an  acquittal,  what  would  have  been  the  con- 
sequence ?  Not  merely  that  he  would  have  possessed, 
undisturbed,  his  plundered  thousands  ;  not  merely  that 
he  might  have  laughed  at  the  family  whose  money  he 
was  spending  ;  but  that  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  other 
shopmen,  taking  confidence  from  his  success  and  his 


1 82  THE   MORALITY  OF   ^EGAI,   PRACTICE.        [ESSAY  II 

impunity,  might  enter  upon  a  similar  course  of  treach- 
ery and  fraud.  They  might  think  that  if  the  hour  of 
detection  should  arrive,  nothing  was  wanting  but  a 
sagacious  advocate  to  protect  them  from  punishment, 
and  to  secure  their  spoil.  Will  any  man  then  say,  as 
an  excuse  for  the  legal  practice,  that  it  is  "usual," 
1 '  customary, ' '  the  ' '  business  of  the  profession  ?' '  It 
is  preposterous.* 

It  really  is  a  dreadful  consideration,  that  a  body  of 
men,  respectable  in  the  various  relationships  of  life, 
should  make,  in  consequence  of  the  vicious  maxims  of 
a  profession,  these  deplorable  sacrifices  of  rectitude. 
To  a  writer  upon  such  a  subject,  it  is  difficult  to  speak 
with  that  plainness  which  morality  requires  without 
seeming  to  speak  illiberally  of  men.  But  it  is  not  a 
question  of  liberality  but  of  morals.  When  a  barrister 
arrives  at  an  assize  town  on  the  circuit,  and  tacitly 
publishes  that  (abating  a  few,  and  only  a  few,  cases) 
he  is  willing  to  take  the  brief  of  any  client  ;  that  he  is 
ready  to  employ  his  abilities,  his  ingenuity,  in  proving 
that  any  given  cause  is  good  or  that  it  is  bad  ;  and 
when,  having  gone  before  a  jury,  he  urges  the  side  on 
which  he  happens  to  have  been  employed,  with  all 
the  earnestness  of  seeming  integrity  and  truth,  and 
bends  all  the  faculties  which  God  has  given  him  in 
promotion  of  its  success  ;  when  we  see  all  this,  and  re- 

*  Some  obstacles  in  the  way  of  this  mode  of  defeating  the 
ends  of  justice  have  been  happily  interposed  by  the  admirable 
exertions  of  the  late  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home  Depart- 
ment. Still  such  cases  are  applicable  as  illustrations  of  what 
the  duties  of  the  profession  are  ;  and,  unfortunately,  opportun- 
ities in  abundance  remain  for  sacrificing  the  duties  of  the  pro- 
fession to  its  ' '  business. ' '  Here,  without  any  advertence  to 
political  opinion,  it  may  be  remarked,  that  one  such  statesman 
as  Robert  Peel  is  of  more  value  to  his  country  than  a  multitude 
of  those  who  take  office  and  leave  it  without  any  endeavor  to 
ameliorate  the  national  institutions. 


CHAP.    V.]        THE  MORAUTY  OF  I^EGAI,  PRACTICE.  183 

member  that  it  was  the  toss  of  a  die  whether  he  should 
have  done  exactly  the  contrary,  I  think  that  no  ex- 
pression characterizes  the  procedure  but  that  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  prostitution.  In  any  other  place  than 
a  court  of  justice,  every  one  would  say  that  it  was  pros- 
titution :  a  court  of  justice  cannot  make  it  less. 

Perhaps  the  reader  has  heard  of  the  pleader  who,  by 
some  accident,  mistook  the  side  on  which  he  was  to 
argue,  and  earnestly  contended  for  the  opponent's 
cause.  His  distressed  client  at  length  conveyed  an  in- 
timation of  his  mistake,  and  he,  with  forensic  dexterity 
told  the  jury  that  hitherto  he  had  only  been  anticipat- 
ing the  arguments  of  the  opposing  counsel,  and  that  now 
he  would  proceed  to  show  they  were  fallacions.  If  the 
reader  should  imagine  there  is  peculiar  indecency  in 
this,  his  sentiment  would  be  founded  upon  habit  rather 
than  upon  reason.  There  is,  really,  very  little  differ- 
ence between  contending  for  both  sides  of  the  same 
cause,  and  contending  for  either  side,  as  the  earliest 
retainer  may  decide.  I  lately  read  the  report  of  a 
trial  in  which  retainers  from  both  parties  had  been 
sent  to  a  counsel,  and  when  the  cause  was  brought 
into  court  it  was  still  undecided  for  whom  he  should 
appear.  The  scale  was  turned  by  the  judgment  of 
another  counsel,  and  the  pleader  instantly  appeared  on 
behalf  of  the  client  to  whom  his  brother  had  allotted 
him. 

Probably  it  will  be  asked,  What  is  a  legal  man  to 
do?  How  shall  he  discriminate  his  duties,  or  know, 
in  the  present  state  of  legal  institutions,  what  extent 
of  advocation  morality  allows?  These  are  fair  ques- 
tions, and  he  who  asks  them  is  entitled  to  an  answer. 
I  confess  that  an  answer  is  difficult  :  and  why  is  it 
difficult  ?  Because  the  whole  system  is  unsound.  He 
who  would  rectify  the  ordinary  legal  practice,  is  in  the 
situation  of  a  physician  who  can  scarcely  prescribe  with 


1 84  THE   MORALITY   OF   I,EGAI<   PRACTICE.       [ESSAY  II. 

effect  for  a  particular  symptom  in  a  patient's  case,  un- 
less he  will  submit  to  an  entirely  new  regimen  and 
mode  of  life.  The  conscientious  lawyer  is  surrounded 
with  temptations  and  with  difficulties  resulting  from  the 
general  system  of  the  law  ;  difficulties  and  temptations 
so  great  that  it  may  almost  appear  to  be  the  part  of  a 
wise  man  to  fly  rather  than  to  encounter  them.  There 
is  however  nothing  necessarily  incidental  to  the  legal 
profession  which  makes  it  incompatible  with  morality. 
He  who  has  the  firmness  to  maintain  his  allegiance  to 
virtue  may  doubtless  maintain  it.  Such  a  man  would 
consider,  that  law  being  in  general  the  practical  stand- 
ard of  equity,  the  pleader  may  properly  illustrate  and 
enforce  it.  He  may  assiduously  examine  statutes  and 
precedents,  and  honorably  adduce  them  on  behalf  of 
his  client.  He  may  distinctly  and  luminously  exhibit 
his  client's  claims.  In  examining  his  witnesses  he  may 
educe  the  whole  truth  :  in  examining  the  other  party's, 
he  may  endeavor  to  detect  collusion,  and  to  elicit  facts 
which  they  may  attempt  to  conceal ;  in  a  word,  he  may 
lay  before  the  court  a  just  and  lucid  view  of  the  whole 
question.  But  he  may  not  quote  statutes  and  adjudged 
cases  which  he  really  does  not  think  apply  to  the  sub- 
ject, or  if  they  do  appear  to  apply,  he  may  not  urge 
them  as  possessing  greater  force  or  applicability  than 
he  really  thinks  they  possess.  He  may  not  endeavor 
to  mislead  the  jury  by  appealing  to  their  feelings,  by 
employing  ridicule,  and  especially  by  unfounded  in- 
sinuations or  misrepresentation  of  facts.  He  may  not 
endeavor  to  make  his  own  witnesses  affirm  more  than 
he  thinks  they  know,  or  induce  them,  by  artful  ques- 
tions, to  give  a  coloring  to  facts  different  from  the  col- 
oring of  truth.  He  may  not  endeavor  to  conceal  or 
discredit  the  truth  by  attempting  to  confuse  the  other 
witnesses,  or  by  entrapping  them  into  contradictions. 
Such  as  these  appear  to  be  the  rules  which  rectitude 


CHAP.    V.]         THE   MORALITY   OF   I^EGAI,  PRACTICE.  185 

imposes  in  ordinary  cases.  There  are  some  cases 
which  a  professional  man  ought  not  to  undertake  at  all. 
This  is  indeed  acknowledged  by  numbers  of  the  pro- 
fession. The  obligation  to  reject  them  is  of  course 
founded  upon  their  contrariety  to  virtue.  How  then 
shall  a  legal  man  know  whether  he  ought  to  undertake 
a  cause  at  all,  but  by  some  previous  consideration  of 
its  merits.  This  must  really  be  done  if  he  would  con- 
form to  the  requisitions  of  morality.  There  is  not  an 
alternative  :  and  '  •  absurd  "  or  "  impracticable  "  as  it 
may  be  pronounced  to  be,  we  do  not  shrink  from  ex- 
plicitly maintaining  the  truth.  Impracticable  !  it  is  at 
any  rate  not  impracticable  to  withdraw  from  the  pro- 
fession or  to  decline  to  enter  it.  A  man  is  not  com- 
pelled to  be  a  lawyer  :  and  if  there  are  so  many  diffi- 
culties in  the  practice  of  professional  virtue,  what  is  to 
be  said  ?  Are  we  to  say,  Virtue  must  be  sacrificed  to  a 
profession — or,  The  profession  must  be  sacrificed  to 
virtue  ?  The  pleader  will  perhaps  say  that  he  cannot 
tell  what  the  merits  of  a  case  are  until  they  are  elicited 
in  court :  but  this  surely  would  not  avail  to  justify  a 
disregard  of  morality  in  any  other  case.  To  defend 
one's  self  for  an  habitual  disregard  of  the  claims  of 
rectitude,  because  we  cannot  tell,  when  we  begin  a 
course  of  action,  whether  it  will  involve  a  sacrifice  of 
rectitude  or  not,  is  an  ill  defence  indeed.  At  any  rate, 
if  he  connects  himself  with  a  cause  of  questionable 
rectitude,  he  needs  not  and  he  ought  not  to  advocate 
it,  whilst  ignorant  of  its  merits,  as  if  he  knew  that  it 
was  good.  He  ought  not  to  advocate  it  further  than  he 
thinks  it  is  good. 

There  is  one  consideration  under  which  a  pleader 
may  assist  a  client  even  with  a  bad  cause,  which  is, 
that  it  is  proper  to  prevent  the  client  from  suffering  too 
far.  I  would  acknowledge,  generally,  the  justice  of 
the  opposite  party's  claims,  or,  if  it  were  a  criminal 


186  THE  MORALITY  OE   EEGAE  PRACTICE.    [ESSAY   II. 

case,  I  would  acquiesce  in  the  evidence  which  carried 
conviction  to  my  mind  ;  but  still,  in  both,  something 
may  remain  for  the  pleader  to  do.  The  plaintiff  may 
demand  a  thousand  pounds  when  only  eight  hundred 
are  due,  and  a  pleader,  though  he  could  not  with  integ- 
rity resist  the  whole  demand,  could  resist  the  excess  of 
the  demand  above  the  just  amount.  Or  if  the  prosecu- 
tor urges  the  guilt  of  a  prisoner  and  attempts  to  pro- 
cure the  infliction  of  an  undue  punishment,  a  pleader, 
though  he  knows  the  prisoner's  guilt,  may  rightly  pre- 
vent a  sentence  too  severe.  Murray,  the  grammarian, 
had  been  a  barrister  in  America  :  "  I  do  not  recollect," 
says  he,  "that  I  ever  encouraged  a  client  to  proceed 
at  law  when  I  thought  his  cause  was  unjust  or  indefensi- 
ble ;  but  in  such  cases,  I  believe  it  was  my  invariable 
practice  to  discourage  litigation  and  to  recommend  a 
peaceable  settlement  of  differences.  In  the  retrospect 
of  this  mode  of  practice,  I  have  always  had  great  satis- 
faction, and  I  am  persuaded  that  a  different  procedure 
would  have  been  the  source  of  many  painful  recollec- 
tions."* 

One  serious  consideration  remains — the  effect  of  the 
immorality  of  legal  practice  upon  the  personal  char- 
acter of  the  profession.  "The  lawyer  who  is  fre- 
quently engaged  in  resisting  what  he  strongly  suspects 
to  be  just,  in  maintaining  what  he  deems  to  be  in  strict- 
ness untenable,  in  advancing  inconclusive  reasoning, 
and  seeking  after  flaws  in  the  sound  replies  of  his  an- 
tagonists, can  be  preserved  by  nothing  short  of  serious 
and  invariable  solicitude,  from  the  risk  of  having  the 
distinction  between  moral  right  and  wrong  almost 
erased  from  his  mind."f  Is  it  indeed  so?  Tremend- 
ous is  the  risk.  Is  it  indeed  so?  Then  the  custom 
which  entails  this  fearful  risk  must  infallibly  be  bad. 

*  Memoirs  of  Lindley  Murray,  p.  43. 
f  Gisborne. 


CHAP.    V.]        THE   MORALITY  OF   I.EGAI,  PRACTICE.  187 

Assuredly  no  virtuous  conduct  tends  to  erase  the  dis- 
tinctions between  right  and  wrong  from  the  mind. 


It  is  by  no  means  certain,  that  if  a  lawyer  were  to 
enter  upon  life  with  a  steady  determination  to  act  upon 
the  principles  of  strict  integrity,  his  experience  would 
occasion  any  exception  to  the  general  rule,  that  the 
path  of  virtue  is  the  path  of  interest.  The  client  who 
was  conscious  of  the  goodness  of  his  cause,  would  pre- 
fer the  advocate  whose  known  maxims  of  conduct  gave 
weight  to  every  cause  that  he  undertook.  When  such 
a  man  appeared  before  a  jury,  they  would  attend  to 
his  statements  and  his*  reasonings  with  that  confidence 
which  integrity  only  can  inspire.  They  would  not 
make,  as  they  now  do,  perpetual  deductions  from  his 
averred  facts ;  they  would  not  be  upon  the  watch,  as 
they  now  are,  to  protect  themselves  from  illusion,  and 
casuistry,  and  misrepresentation.  Such  a  man,  I  say, 
would  have*  a  weight  of  advocacy  which  no  other  quali- 
fication can  supply  ;  and  upright  clients,  knowing  this 
would  find  it  their  interest  to  employ  him.  The 
majority  of  clients,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  are  upright. 
Professional  success,  therefore,  would  probably  follow. 
And  if  a  few  such  pleaders,  nay  if  one  such  pleader 
was  established,  the  consequence  might  be  beneficial 
and  extensive  to  a  degree  which  it  is  not  easy  to  com- 
pute. It  might  soon  become  necessary  for  other  plead- 
ers to  act  upon  the  same  principles,  because  clients 
would  not  entrust  their  interests  to  any  but  those 
whose  characters  would  give  weight  to  their  advocacy. 
Thus  even  the  profligate  part  of  the  profession  might 
be  reformed  by  motives  of  interest  if  not  from  choice. 
Want  of  credit  might  be  want  of  practice  ;  for  it  might 
eventually  be  almost  equivalent  to  the  loss  of  a  cause 
to  entrust  it  to  a  bad  man.  The  effects  would  extend 
to  the  public.     If  none  but  upright  men  could  be  efn- 


188  PROMISES.— WES.  [ESSAY    II. 

cient  advocates,  and  if  upright  men  would  not  advo- 
cate vicious  causes,  vicious  causes  would  not  be  prose- 
cuted. But  if  such  be  the  probable  or  even  the  possi- 
ble results  of  sterling  integrity,  if  it  might  be  the 
means  of  reforming  the  practice  of  a  large  and  influ- 
ential profession,  and  of  almost  exterminating  wicked 
litigation  from  a  people — the  obligation  to  practise  this 
integrity  is  proportionately  great:  the  amount  of  depend- 
ing good  involves  a  corresponding  amount  of  responsi- 
bility upon  him  who  contributes  to  perpetuate  the  evil. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PROMISES.— LIES. 


Promises. — Definition  of  a  promise — Parole — Extorted  prom- 
ises— John  Fletcher. 

LIES. — Milton's  definition — Lies  in  war  :  to  robbers  :  to  luna- 
tics :  to  the  sick — Hyperbole — Irony — Complimentary  un- 
truths— "  Not  at  home." 

A  Promise  is  a  contract,  differing  from  such  con- 
tracts as  a  lawyer  would  draw  up,  in  the  circumstance 
that  ordinarily  it  is  not  written.  The  motive  for  sign- 
ing a  contract  is  to  give  assurance  or  security  to  the 
receiver  that  its  terms  will  be  fulfilled.  The  same 
motive  is  the  inducement  to  a  promise.  The  general 
obligation  of  promises  needs  little  illustration,  be- 
cause it  is  not  disputed.  Men  are  not  left  without  the 
consciousness  that  what  they  promise,  they  ought  to 
perform  ;  and  thus  thousands,  who  can  give  no  philo- 
sophical account  of  the  matter,  know,  with  certain  as- 
surance, that  if  they  violate  their  engagements  they 
violate  the  law  of  God. 


CHAP.   VI.]  PROMISES.— LIES.  189 

Some  philosophers  deduce  the  obligation  of  promises 
from  the  expediency  of  fulfilling  them.  Doubtless  ful- 
filment is  expedient ;  but  there  is  a  shorter  and  a  safer 
road  to  truth.  To  promise  and  not  to  perform,  is  to 
deceive ;  and  deceit  is  peculiarly  and  especially  con- 
demned by  Christianity.  A  lie  has  been  defined  to  be 
4  -  a  breach  of  promise  ; ! '  and,  since  the  Scriptures 
condemn  lying,  they  condemn  breaches  of  promise. 

Persons  sometimes  deceive  others  by  making  a 
promise  in  a  sense  different  from  that  in  which  they 
know  it  will  be  understood.  They  hope  this  species  of 
deceit  is  less  criminal  than  breaking  their  word,  and 
wish  to  gain  the  advantage  of  deceiving  without  its 
guilt.  They  dislike  the  shame  but  perform  the  act.  A 
son  has  abandoned  his  father's  house,  and  the  father 
promises  that  if  he  returns,  he  shall  be  received  with 
open  arms.  The  son  returns,  the  father  "opens  his 
arms  "  to  receive  him,  and  then  proceeds  to  treat  him 
with  rigor.  This  father  falsifies  his  promise  as  truly 
as  if  he  had  specifically  engaged  to  treat  him  with 
kindness.  The  sense  in  which  a  promise  binds  a  per- 
son, is  the  sense  in  which  he  knows  it  is  accepted  by  the 
other  party. 

It  is  very  possible  to  promise  without  speaking.  Those 
who  purchase  at  auctions  frequently  advance  on  the  price 
by  a  sign  or  a  nod.  An  auctioneer,  in  selling  an  estate 
says,  (<  Nine  hundred  and  ninety  pounds  are  offered." 
He  who  makes  the  customary  sign  to  indicate  an  ad- 
vance of  ten  pounds,  promises  to  give  a  thousand. — A 
person  who  brings  up  his  children  or  others  in  the 
known  and  encouraged  expectation  that  he  will  provide 
for  them,  promises  to  provide  for  them.  A  shipmaster 
promises  to  deliver  a  pipe  of  wine  at  the  accustomed 
port,  although  he  may  have  made  no  written  and  no 
verbal  engagement  respecting  it. 

Parole,  such  as  is  taken  of  military  men,  is  of  imper- 


19°  PROMISES.— UES.  [ESSAY  II. 

aiive  obligation.  The  prisoner  who  escapes  by  breach 
of  parole,  ought  to  be  regarded  as  the  perpetrator  of  an 
aggravated  crime  :  aggravated,  since  his  word  was  ac- 
cepted, as  he  knows,  because  peculiar  reliance  was 
placed  upon  it,  and  since  he  adds  to  the  ordinary  guilt 
of  breach  of  promise,  that  of  casting  suspicion  and  en- 
tailing suffering  upon  other  men.  If  breach  of  parole 
were  general,  parole  would  not  be  taken.  It  is  one  of 
the  anomalies  which  are  presented  by  the  adherents  to 
the  law  of  honor,  that  they  do  not  reject  from  their 
society  the  man  who  impeaches  their  respectability  and 
his  own,  whilst  they  reject  the  man  who  really  im- 
peaches neither  the  one  nor  the  other. — To  say  I  am 
a  man  of  honor  and  therefore  you  may  rely  upon  my 
word ;  and  then,  as  soon  as  it  is  accepted  to  violate 
that  word  is  no  ordinary  deceit.  An  upright  man 
never  broke  parole. 

Promises  are  not  binding  if  performance  is  unlawful. 
Sometimes  men  promise  to  commit  a  wicked  act — even 
to  assassination  ;  but  a  man  is  not  required  to  commit 
murder  because  he  has  promised  to  commit  it.  Thus, 
in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  the  son  who  had  said,  "  I 
will  not"  work  in  the  vineyard,  and  "afterwards  re- 
pented and  went,"  is  spoken  of  with  approbation  :  his 
promise  was  not  binding,  because  fulfilment  would 
have  been  wrong.  Cranmer,  whose  religious  firmness 
was  overcome  in  the  prospect  of  the  stake,  recanted  ; 
that  is,  he  promised  to  abandon  the  protestant  faith. 
Neither  was  his  promise  binding.  To  have  regarded  it 
would  have  been  a  crime.  The  offence  both  of  Cran- 
mer and  of  the  son  in  the  parable,  consisted  not  in  vio- 
lating their  promises,  but  in  making  them. 

Some  scrupulous  persons  appear  to  attach  a  needless 
obligation  to  expressions  which  they  employ  in  the 
form  of  promises.  You  ask  a  lady  if  she  will  join  a 
party  in  a  walk  ;  she  declines,  but  presently  recollect- 


CHAP.   VI.]  PROMISES. — UES.  191 

ing  some  inducement  to  go,  she  is  in  doubt  whether 
her  refusal  does  not  oblige  her  to  stay  at  home.  Such 
a  person  should  recollect,  that  her  refusal  does  not  par- 
take of  the  character  of  a  promise  :  there  is  no  other 
party  to  it ;  she  comes  under  no  engagement  to  an- 
other. She  only  expresses  her  present  intention,  which 
intention  she  is  at  liberty  to  alter. 

Many  promises  are  conditional  though  the  conditions 
are  not  expressed.  A  man  says  to  some  friends,  I  will 
dine  with  you  at  two  o'clock  ;  but  as  he  is  preparing 
to  go  his  child  meets  with  an  accident  which  requires 
his  attention.  This  man  does  not  violate  a  promise  by 
absenting  himself,  because  such  promises  are  in  fact 
made  and  accepted  with  the"  tacit  understanding  that 
they  are  subject  to  such  conditions.  No  one  would 
expect,  when  his  friend  engaged  to  dine  with  him,  that 
he  intended  to  bind  himself  to  come,  though  he  left  a 
child  unassisted  with  a  fractured  arm.  Accordingly, 
when  a  person  means  to  exclude  such  conditions  he 
says,  *  ■  I  will  certainly  do  so  and  so  if  I  am  living  and 
able." 

Yet  even  to  seem  to  disregard  an  engagement  is  an 
evil.  To  an  ingenuous  and  Christian  mind  there  is 
always  something  painful  in  not  performing  it.  Of  this 
evil  the  principal  source  is  gratuitously  brought  upon 
us  by  the  habit  of  using  unconditional  terms  for  con- 
ditional engagements.  That  which  is  only  intention 
should  be  expressed  as  intention.  It  is  better,  and 
more  becoming  the  condition  of  humanity,  to  say,  I  in- 
tend to  do  a  thing,  than,  I  will  do  a  thing.  The 
recollection  of  our  dependency  upon  uncontrollable  cir- 
cumstances should  be  present  with  us  even  in  little 
affairs — "Go  to  now,  ye  that  say,  To-day  or  to-morrow 
we  will  go  into  such  a  city  and  buy  and  sell  and  get 
gain  :  whereas  ye  know  not  what  shall  be  on  the  mor- 
row.— Ye  ought  to  say,  If  the  Lord  will,  we  shall  live, 


192  PROMISES.— UBS.  [ESSAY   II. 

and  do  this  or  that."  Not  indeed  that  the  sacred 
name  of  God  is  to  be  introduced  to  express  the  condi- 
tions of  our  little  engagements ;  but  the  principle 
should  never  be  forgotten — that  we  know  not  what 
shall  be  on  the  morrow. 

Respecting  the  often  discussed  question,  whether  ex- 
torted  promises  are  binding,  there  has  been,  I  suspect, 
a  general  want  of  advertence  to  one  important  point. 
What  is  an  extorted  promise  ?  If  by  an  extorted  prom- 
ise, is  meant  a  promise  that  is  made  involuntarily, 
without  the  concurrence  of  the  will ;  if  it  is  the  effect 
of  any  ungovernable  impulse,  and  made  without  the 
consciousness  of  the  party — then  it  is  not  a  promise. 
This  may  happen.  Fear  or  agitation  may  be  so  great 
that  a  person  really  does  not  know  what  he  says  or 
does  ;  and  in  such  a  case  a  man's  promises  do  not  bind 
him  any  more  than  the  promises  of  a  man  in  a  fit  of 
insanity.  But  if  by  an  ■ '  extorted ' '  promise  it  is  only 
meant  that  very  powerful  inducements  were  held  out  to 
making  it,  inducements  however  which  did  not  take 
away  the  power  of  choice — then  these  promises  are  in 
strictness  voluntary,  and  like  all  other  voluntary  en- 
gagements, they  ought  to  be  fulfilled.  But  perhaps 
fulfilment  itself  is  unlawful.  Then  ypu  may  not  fulfil 
it.  The  offence  consists  in  making  such  engagements. 
It  will  be  said,  a  robber  threatened  to  take  my  life  un- 
less I  would  promise  to  reveal  the  place  where  my 
neighbor's  money  was  deposited.  Ought  I  not  to  make 
the  promise  in  order  to  save  my  life  ?  No.  Here,  in 
reality,  is  the  origin  of  the  difficulties  and  the  doubts. 
To  rob  your  neighbor  is  criminal ;  to  enable  another 
man  to  rob  him  is  criminal  too.  Instead,  therefore,  of 
discussing  the  obligation  of  \ '  extorted ' '  promises,  we 
should  consider  whether  such  promises  may  lawfully 
be  made.  The  prospect  of  saving  life  is  one  of  the 
utmost  inducements  to  make  them,  and  yet,  amongst 


CHAP.    VI.]  PROMISES. — WES.  193 

those  things  which  we  are  to  hold  subservient  to  our 
Christian  fidelity,  is  our  "own  life  also."  If,  how- 
ever, giving  way  to  the  weakness  of  nature,  a  person 
makes  the  promise,  he  should  regulate  his  performance 
by  the  ordinary  principles.  Fulfil  the  promise  unless 
fulfilment  be  wrong  :  and  if,  in  estimating  the  pro- 
priety of  fulfilling  it,  any  difficulty  arises,  it  must  be 
charged  not  to  the  imperfection  of  moral  principles,  but 
to  the  entanglement  in  which  we  involve  ourselves  by 
having  begun  to  deviate  from  rectitude.  If  we  had 
not  unlawfully  made  the  promise  we  should  have  had 
no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  our  subsequent  duty.  The 
traveller  who  does  not  desert  the  proper  road,  easily 
finds  his  way  ;  he  who  once  loses  sight  of  it,  has  many 
difficulties  in  returning. 

The  history  of  that  good  man  John  Fletcher  (L,a 
Flechere)  affords  an  example  to  our  purpose.  Fletcher 
had  a  brother,  De  Gons,  and  a  nephew,  a  profligate 
youth.  This  youth  came  one  day  to  his  uncle  De 
Gons,  and  holding  up  a  pistol,  declared  he  would  in- 
stantly shoot  him  if  he  did  not  give  him  an  order  for 
five  hundred  crowns.  De  Gons  in  terror  gave  it ;  and 
the  nephew  then,  under  the  same  threat,  required  him 
solemnly  to  promise  that  he  would  not  prosecute  him  ; 
and  De  Gons  made  the  promise  accordingly.  That  is 
what  is  called  an  extorted  promise,  and  an  extorted  gift. 
How,  in  similar  circumstances,  did  Fletcher  act?  This 
youth  afterwards  went  to  him,  told  him  of  the  "  pres- 
ent "  which  De  Gons  had  made,  and  showed  him  the 
order.  Fletcher  suspected  some  fraud,  and  thinking 
it  right  to  prevent  its  success,  he  put  the  order  in  his 
pocket.  It  was  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  The  young 
man  instantly  presented  his  pistol,  declaring  that  he 
would  fire  if  he  did  not  deliver  it  up.  Fletcher  did  not 
submit  to  the  extortion  :  he  told  him  that  his  life  was 
secure  under  the  protection  of  God,  refused  to  deliver 


194  PROMISES.— UES.  [ESSAY  II. 

up  the  order,  and  severely  remonstrated  with  his 
nephew  on  his  profligacy.  The  young  man  was  re- 
strained and  softened  ;  and  before  he  left  his  uncle, 
gave  him  many  assurances  that  he  would  amend  his 
his  life. — De  Gons  might  have  been  perplexed  with 
doubts  as  to  the  obligation  of  his  ■ '  extorted  ' '  prom- 
ise : — Fletcher  could  have  no  doubts  to  solve. 

LIES. 

The  guilt  of  lying,  like  that  of  many  other  offences, 
has  been  needlessly  founded  upon  its  ill  effects.  These 
effects  constitute  a  good  reason  for  adhering  to  truth, 
but  they  are  not  the  greatest  nor  the  best.  ' '  Putting 
away  lying,  speak  every  man  truth  with  his  neigh- 
bor."* "Ye  shall  not  steal,  neither  deal  falsely, 
neither  lie  one  to  another. "f  "The  law  is  made  for 
unholy  and  profane,  for  murderers — for  liars. "J  It 
may  afford  the  reader  some  instruction,  to  observe 
with  what  crimes  lying  is  associated  in  Scripture — 
with  perjury,  and  murder,  and  parricide.  Not  that  it 
is  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  measure  of  guilt  of 
these  crimes  is  equal,  but  that  the  guilt  of  all  is  great. 
With  respect  to  lying,  there  is  no  trace  in  these  pas- 
sages that  its  guilt  is  conditional  upon  its  effects,  or  that 
it  is  not  always,  and  for  whatever  purpose,  prohibited 
by  the  Divine  will. 

A  lie  is,  uttering  what  is  not  true  when  the  speaker 
professes  to  utter  truth,  or  when  he  knows  it  is  ex- 
pected by  the  hearer.  I  do  not  perceive  that  any  looser 
definition  is  allowable,  because  every  looser  definition 
would  permit  deceit. 

Milton's  definition,  considering  the  general  tenor  of 
his  character,  was  very  lax.  He  says,  "Falsehood  is 
incurred  when  any  one,  from  a  dishonest  motive,  either 
perverts   the  truth  or  utters  what  is  false  to  one  to 

*  Eph.  iv.  25.  |  Lev.  xix.  11.  %  %  Tim.  i.  9,  xo. 


CHAP.    VI.]  PROMISES. — UES.  I95 

whom  it  is  his  duty  to  speak  the  truth."*  To  whom  is  it 
not  our  duty  to  speak  the  truth?  What  constitutes 
duty  but  the  will  of  God?  and  where  is  it  found  that 
it  is  his  will  that  we  should  sometimes  lie  ! — But  another 
condition  is  proposed  :  In  order  to  constitute  a  lie,  the 
motive  to  it  must  be  dishonest.  Is  not  all  deceit  dis- 
honesty ;  and  can  any  one  utter  a  lie  without  deceit  ? 
A  man  who  travels  in  the  Arctic  regions  comes  home 
and  writes  a  narrative  professedly  faithful,  of  his  ad- 
ventures, and  decorates  it  with  marvellous  incidents 
which  never  happened,  and  stories  of  wonders  which 
he  never  saw.  You  tell  this  man  he  has  been  passing 
lies  upon  the  public.  Oh  no,  he  says,  I  had  not  ' !  a 
dishonest  motive."  I  only  meant  to  make  readers 
wonder. — Milton's  mode  of  substantiating  his  doctrine, 
is  worthy  of  remark.  He  makes  many  references  for 
authority  to  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  but  not  o?ie  to  the 
Christian.  The  reason  is  plain  though  perhaps  he  was 
not  aware  of  it,  that  the  purer  moral  system  which  the 
Christian  lawgiver  introduced,  did  not  countenance 
the  doctrine.  Another  argument  is  so  feeble  that  it 
may  well  be  concluded  no  valid  argument  can  be 
found.  If  it  had  been  discoverable  would  not  Milton 
have  found  it ?  He  says,  "It  is  universally  admitted 
that  feints  and  stratagems  in  war,  when  unaccompanied 
by  perjury  or  breach  of  faith,  do  not  fall  under  the  de- 
scription of  falsehood. — It  is  scarcely  possible  to  exe- 
cute any  of  the  artifices  of  war,  without  openly  utter- 
ing the  greatest  untruths  with  the  indisputable  inten- 
tion of  deceiving. "f  And  so,  because  the  "greatest 
untruths"  are  uttered  in  conducting  one  of  the  most 
flagitious  departments  of  the  most  unchristian  system 
in  the  world,  we  are  told,  in  a  system  of  Christian 
doctrine,  that  untruths  are  lawful  ! 

*  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  658. 
t  Id.  659. 


I96  PROMISES.— WES.  [ESSAY    II. 

Paley's  philosophy  is  3^et  more  lax  :  he  says  that  we 
may  tell  a  falsehood  to  a  person  who  ' '  has  no  right  to 
know  the  truth."*  What  constitutes  a  right  to  know 
the  truth  it  were  not  easy  to  determine.  But  if  a  man 
has  no  right  to  know  the  truth — withhold  it ;  but  do 
not  utter  a  lie.  A  man  has  no  right  to  know  how 
much  property  I  possess.  If,  however,  he  imperti- 
nently chooses  to  ask,  what  am  I  to  do?  Refuse  to  tell 
him,  says  Christian  morality.  What  am  I  to  do  ?  Tell 
him  it  is  ten  times  as  great  as  it  is,  says  the  morality  of 
Paley. 

To  say  that  when  a  man  is  tempted  to  employ  a  false- 
hood, he  is  to  consider  the  degree  of  "  inconveniency 
which  results  from  the  want  of  confidence  in  such 
cases," f  and  to  employ  the  falsehood  or  not  as  this  de- 
gree shall  prescribe,  is  surely  to  trifle  with  morality. 
What  is  the  hope  that  a  man  will  decide  aright,  who 
sets  about  such  a  calculation  at  such  a  time  ?  Another 
kind  of  falsehood  which  it  is  said  is  lawful,  is  that  M  to 
a  robber,  to  conceal  your  property."  A  man  gets  into 
my  house,  and  desires  to  know  where  he  shall  find  my 
plate.  I  tell  him  it  is  in  the  chest  in  such  a  room, 
knowing  that  it  is  in  a  closet  in  another.  By  such  a 
falsehood  I  might  save  my  property  or  possibly  my  life; 
but  if  the  prospect  of  doing  this  be  a  sufficient  reason 
for  violating  the  moral  law,  there  is  no  action  which 
we  may  not  lawfully  commit.  May  a  person,  in  order 
so  to  save  his  property  or  life,  commit  parricide? 
Every  reader  says,  No.  But  where  is  the  ground  of 
the  distinction  ?  If  you  may  lie  for  the  sake  of  such 
advantages,  why  may  you  not  kill?  What  makes 
murder  unlawful  but  that  which  makes  lying  unlawful 
too  ?  No  man  surely  will  say  that  we  must  make  dis- 
tinctions in  the  atrocity  of  such  actions,  and  that 
though  it  is  not  lawful  for  the  sake  of  advantage  to 
*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  3.  p.  1.  c.  15.  |  Id. 


CHAP.   VI.]  PROMISES.— WES.  I97 

commit  an  act  of  a  certain  intensity  of  guilt,  yet  it 
is  lawful  to  commit  one  of  a  certain  gradation  less. 
Such  doctrine  would  be  purely  gratuitous  and  un- 
founded :  it  would  be  equivalent  to  saying  that  we  are 
at  liberty  to  disobey  the  Divine  laws  when  we  think 
fit.  The  case  is  very  simple  :  If  I  may  tell  a  false- 
hood to  a  robber  in  order  to  save  my  property,  I  may 
commit  parricide  for  the  same  purpose  ;  for  lying  and 
parricide  are  placed  together  and  jointly  condemned  * 
in  the  revelation  from  God. 

Then  we  are  told  that  we  may  ' '  tell  a  falsehood  to  a 
madman  for  his  own  advantage, ' '  and  this  because  it 
is  beneficial.  Dr.  Carter  may  furnish  an  answer  :  he 
speaks  of  the  Female  Lunatic  Asylum,  Saltpetriere  in 
Paris,  and  says,  "  The  great  object  to  which  the  views 
of  the  officers  of  La  Saltpetriere  are  directed,  is  to  gain 
the  confidence  of  the  patients  ;  and  this  object  is  gen- 
erally attained  by  gentleness,  by  appearing  to  take  an 
interest  in  their  affairs,  by  a  decision  of  character 
equally  remote  from  the  extremes  of  indulgence  and 
severity,  and  by  the  most  scrupulous  observance  of  good 
faith.  Upon  this  latter,  particular  stress  seems  to  be 
laid  by  M.  Pinel,  who  remarks  '  that  insane  persons, 
like  children,  lose  all  confidence  and  all  respect  if  you 
fail  in  your  word  towards  them  ;  and  they  immediately 
set  their  ingenuity  to  work  to  deceive  and  circumvent 
you.'  "f  What  then  becomes  of  the  doctrine  of  V  tell- 
ing falsehoods  to  madmen  for  their  own  advantage  ?  ' ' 
It  is  pleasant  thus  to  find  the  evidence  of  experience 
enforcing  the  dictates  of  principle,  and  that  what  mor- 
ality declares  to  be  right,  facts  declare  to  be  expedient. 

Persons  frequently  employ  falsehoods  to  a  sick  man 
who  cannot  recover,  lest  it  should  discompose  his  mind. 
This  is  called  kindness,  although  an  earnest  prepara- 

*  1  Tim.  i.  9,  10. 

t  Account  of  the  Principal  Hospitals  in  France,  &c. 


198  PROMISES.— LIES.  [ESSAY  II. 

tion  for  death  may  be  at  stake  upon  their  speaking  the 
truth.  There  is  a  peculiar  inconsistency  sometimes 
exhibited  on  such  occasions  :  the  persons  who  will  not 
discompose  a  sick  man -for  the  sake  of  his  interests  in 
futurity,  will  discompose  him  without  scruple  if  he  has 
not  made  his  will.  Is  a  bequest  of  more  consequence 
to  the  survivor,  than  a  hope  full  of  immortality  to  the 
dying  man  ? 

It  is  curious  to  remark  how  zealously  persons  repro- 
bate ' '  pious  frauds  ;  ' '  that  is,  lies  for  the  religious 
benefit  of  the  deceived  party.  Surely  if  any  reason 
for  employing  falsehood  be  a  good  one,  it  is  the  pros- 
pect of  effecting  religious  benefit.  How  is  it  then  that 
we  so  freely  condemn  these  falsehoods,  whilst  we  con- 
tend for  others  which  are  used  for  less  important  pur- 
poses ? 

Still,  not  every  expression  that  is  at  variance  with 
facts  is  a  lie,  because  there  are  some  expressions  in 
which  the  speaker  does  not  pretend,  and  the  hearer 
does  not  expect,  literal  truth.  Of  this  class  are  hyper- 
boles and  jests,  fables  and  tales  of  professed  fiction  : 
of  this  class  too,  are  parables,  such  as  are  employed  in 
the  New  Testament.  In  such  cases  affirmative  lan- 
guage is  used  in  the  same  terms  as  if  the  allegations 
were  true,  yet  as  it  is  known  that  it  does  not  profess  to 
narrate  facts,  no  lie  is  uttered.  It  is  the  same  with 
some  kinds  of  irony  :  "  Cry  aloud,"  said  Elijah  to  the 
priests  of  the  idol,  "for  he  is  a  god,  peradventure  he 
sleepeth."  And  yet,  because  a  given  untruth  is  not  a 
lie,  it  does  not  therefore  follow,  that  it  is  innocent :  for 
it  is  very  possible  to  employ  such  expressions  without 
any  sufficient  justification.  A  man  who  thinks  he  can 
best  inculcate  virtue  through  a  fable,  may  write  one  :  he 
who  desires  to  discountenance  an  absurdity,  may  employ 
irony.  Yet  every  one  should  use  as  little  of  such 
language     as     he     can,    because     it     is     frequently 


CHAP.    VI.]  PROMISES. — WES.  I99 

dangerous  language.  The  man  who  familiarizes  him- 
self to  a  departure  from  literal  truth,  is  in  danger  of 
departing  from  it  without  reason  and  without  excuse. 
Some  of  these  departures  are  like  lies ;  so  much  like 
them  that  both  speaker  and  hearer  may  reasonably 
question  whether  they  are  lies  or  not.  The  lapse  from 
untruths  which  can  deceive  no  one,  to  those  which  are 
intended  to  deceive,  proceeds  by  almost  imperceptible 
gradations  on  the  scale  of  evil :  and  it  is  not  the  part 
of  wisdom  to  approach  the  verge  of  guilt.  Nor  is  it  to 
be  forgotten,  that  language,  professedly  fictitious,  is 
not  always  understood  to  be  such  by  those  who  hear 
it.  This  applies  especially  to  the  case  of  children — 
that  is,  of  mankind  during  that  period  of  life  in  which 
they  are  acquiring  some  of  their  first  notions  of  morality. 
The  boy  who  hears  his  father  using  hyperboles  and 
irony  with  a  grave  countenance,  probably  thinks  he 
has  his  father's  example  for  telling  lies  among  his 
schoolfellows. 

Amongst  the  indefensible  untruths  which  often  are 
not  lies  are  those  which  factitious  politeness  enjoins. 
Such  are  compliments  and  complimentary  subscrip- 
tions, and  many  other  untruths  of  expression  and  of 
action  which  pass  currently  in  the  world.  These  are, 
no  doubt,  often  estimated  at  their  value  :  the  receiver 
knows  that  they  are  base  coin  though  they  shine  like 
the  good.  Now,  although  it  is  not  to  be  pretended 
that  such  expressions,  so  estimated,  are  lies,  yet  I  will 
venture  to  affirm  that  the  reader  cannot  set  up  for 
them  any  tolerable  defence  ;  and  if  he  cannot  show  that 
they  are  right  he  may  be  quite  sure  that  they  are 
wrong.  A  defence  has  however  been  attempted  : 
1 '  How  much  is  happiness  increased  by  the  general  adop- 
tion of  a  system  of  concerted  and  limited  deceit  !  He 
from  whose  doctrine  it  flows  that  we  are  to  be  in  no 
case  hypocrites,  would,  in  mere  manners,  reduce  us  to 


200  PROMISES.— LIES.  [ESSAY   II. 

a  degree  of  barbarism  beyond  that  of  the  rudest  sav- 
age." We  do  not  enter  here  into  such  questions  as 
whether  a  man  may  smile  when  his  friend  calls  upon 
him,  though  he  would  rather  just  then  that  he  had 
staid  away.  Whatever  the  reader  may  think  of  these 
questions,  the  ' '  system  of  deceit ' '  which  passes  in  the 
world  cannot  be  justified  by  the  decision.  There  is  no 
fear  that  ■ '  a  degree  of  barbarism  beyond  that  of  the 
rudest  savage ' '  would  ensue,  if  this  system  were 
amended.  The  first  teachers  of  Christianity,  who  will 
not  be  charged  with  being  in  "  any  case  hypocrites," 
both  recommended  and  practised  gentleness  and  court- 
esy. *  And  as  to  the  increase  of  happiness  which  is 
assumed  to  result  from  this  system  of  deceit,  the  fact 
is  of  a  very  questionable  kind.  No  society  I  believe 
sufficiently  discourages  it ;  but  that  society  which  dis- 
courages it  probably  as  much  as  any  other,  certainly 
enjoys  its  full  average  of  happiness.  But  the  apology 
proceeds,  and  more  seriously  errs  :  ' '  The  employment 
of  falsehood  for  the  production  of  good,  cannot  be  more 
unworthy  of  the  Divine  Being  than  the  acknowledged 
employment  of  rapine  and  murder  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. "  f  Is  it  then  not  perceived  that  to  employ  the 
wickedness  of  man  is  a  very  different  thing  from  hold- 
ing its  agents  innocent  f  Some  of  those  whose  wicked- 
ness has  been  thus  employed,  have  been  punished  for 
that  wickedness.  Even  to  show  that  the  Deity  has 
employed  falsehood  for  the  production  of  good,  would 
in  no  degree  establish  the  doctrine  that  falsehood  is 
right. 

The  childish  and  senseless  practice  of  requiring  ser- 
vants to  "deny"  their  masters,  has  had  many  apolo- 
gists— I  suppose  because  many  perceive  that  it  is 
wrong.  It  is  not  always  true  that  such  a  servant  does 
*  i  Peter,  ii.  i.  Tit.  iii.  2.  1  Peter,  iii.  8. 
t  Edin.  Rev.  vol.   1,  Art.   Belsham's  Philosophy  of  the  Mind. 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  20 1 

not  in  strictness  lie  ;  for,  how  well  soever  the  folly  may 
be  understood  by  the  gay  world,  some  who  knock  at 
their  doors  have  no  other  idea  than  that  they  may 
depend  upon  the  servant's  word.  Of  this  the  servant 
is  sometimes  conscious,  and  to  these  persons  therefore  he 
who  denies  his  master,  lies.  An  uninitiated  servant 
suffers  a  shock  to  his  moral  principles  when  he  is  first 
required  to  tell  these  falsehoods.  It  diminishes  his 
previous  abhorrence  of  lying,  and  otherwise  deterior- 
ates his  moral  character.  Even  if  no  such  ill  conse- 
quences resulted  from  this  foolish  custom,  there  is  ob- 
jection to  it  which  is  short,  but  sufficient — nothi?ig  can 
be  said  in  its  defence. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
OATHS. 


THEIR    MORAL    CHARACTER— THEIR     EFFICACY    AS 
SECURITIES  OF  VERACITY— THEIR  EFFECTS. 

A  curse — Immorality  of  oaths — Oaths  of  the  ancient  Jews — 
Milton — Paley— The  High  Priest's  adjuration — Early  Christ- 
ians— Inefficacy  of  oaths  —  Motives  to  veracity — Religious 
sanctions  :  Public  opinion  ;  Legal  penalties — Oaths  in  Evi- 
dence :  Parliamentary  Evidence:  Courts  Martial — The  United 
States — Effects  of  oaths  :  Falsehood — General  obligations. 

1 '  An  oath  is  that  whereby  we  call  God  to  witness 
the  truth  of  what  we  say,  with  a  curse  upon  ourselves, 
either  implied  or  expressed,  should  it  prove  false."* 

A  Curse. — Now  supposing  the  Christian  Scriptures 
to  contain  no  information  respecting  the  moral  char- 
acter of  oaths,  how  far  is  it  reasonable,  or  prudent,  or 

*  Milton  :  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  579. 


202  OATHS.  [ESSAY    II. 

reverent,  for  a  man  to  stake  his  salvation  upon  the 
truth  of  what  he  says  ?  To  bring  forward  so  tremend- 
ous an  event  as  "  everlasting  destruction  from  the 
presence  of  the  Lord,"  in  attestation  of  the  offence  per- 
haps of  a  poacher  or  of  the  claim  to  a  field,  is  surely 
to  make  unwarrantably  light  of  the  most  awful  things. 
This  consideration  applies,  even  if  a  man  is  sure  that 
he  speaks  the  truth  ;  but,  who  is,  beforehand,  sure  of 
this  ?  Oaths  in  evidence,  for  example,  are  taken  be- 
fore the  testimony  is  given.  A  person  swears  that  he 
will  speak  the  truth.  Who,  I  ask,  is  sure  that  he  will 
do  this  ?  Who  is  sure  that  the  embarrassment  of  a 
public  examination,  that  the  ensnaring  questions  of 
counsel,  that  the  secret  influence  of  inclination  or  in- 
terest, will  not  occasion  him  to  utter  one  inaccurate 
expression  ?  Who,  at  any  rate,  is  so  sure  of  this  that 
it  is  rational,  or  justifiable,  specifically  to  stake  his  sal- 
vation upon  his  accuracy  ?  Thousands  of  honest  men 
have  been  mistaken  ;  their  allegations  have  been  sin- 
cere, but  untrue.  And  if  this  should  be  thought  not  a 
legitimate  objection,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  few 
men's  minds  are  so  sternly  upright,  that  they  can  an- 
swer a  variety  of  questions  upon  subjects  on  which  their 
feelings,  and  wishes,  and  interest  are  involved,  with- 
out some  little  deduction  from  the  truth,  in  speaking 
of  matters  that  are  against  their  cause,  or  some  little 
overcoloring  of  facts  in  their  own  favor.  It  is  a  cir- 
cumstance of  constant  occurrence,  that  even  a  well- 
intentioned  witness  adds  to  or  deducts  a  little  from  the 
truth.  Who  then,  amidst  such  temptation,  would 
make,  who  ought  to  make,  his  hope  of  heaven  depend- 
ent on  his  strict  adherence  to  accurate  veracity  ?  And 
if  such  considerations  indicate  the  impropriety  of  swear- 
ing upon  subjects  which  affect  the  lives,  and  liberties, 
and  property  of  others,  how  shall  we  estimate  the  im- 
propriety of  using  these  dreadful  imprecations  to  attest 


CHAP.   VII.]  OATHS.  203 

the  delivery  of  a  summons  for  a  debt  of  half-a-crown  ! 

These  are  moral  objections  to  the  use  of  oaths  inde- 
pendently of  any  reference  to  the  direct  moral  law. 
Another  objection  of  the  same  kind  is  this  :  To  take  an 
oath  is  to  assume  that  the  Deity  will  become  a  party  in 
the  case — that  we  can  call  upon  Him,  when  we  please, 
to  follow  up  by.  the  exercise  of  his  almighty  power,  the 
contracts  (often  the  very  insignificant  contracts)  which 
men  make  with  men.  Is  it  not  irreverent,  and  for  that 
reason  immoral,  to  call  upon  Him  to  exercise  this  power 
in  reference  to  subjects  which  are  so  insignificant  that 
other  men  will  scarcely  listen  with  patience  to  their  de- 
tails? The  objection  goes  even  further.  A  robber 
exacts  an  oath  of  the  man  whom  he  has  plundered, 
that  he  will  not  attempt  to  pursue  or  prosecute  him. 
Pursuit  and  prosecution  are  duties ;  so  then  the  oath 
assumes  that  the  Deity  will  punish  the  swearer  in 
futurity  if  he  fulfils  a  duty.  Confederates  in  a  danger- 
ous and  wicked  enterprise  bind  one  another  to  secrecy 
and  to  mutual  assistance,  by  oaths — assuming  that 
God  will  become  a  party  to  their  wickedness,  and  if 
they  do  not  perpetrate  it  will  punish  them  for  their 
virtue. 

Upon  every  subject  of  questionable  rectitude  that  is 
sanctioned  by  habit  and  the  usages  of  society,  a  person 
should  place  himself  in  the  independent  situation  of 
an  enquirer.  He  should  not  seek  for  arguments  to  de- 
fend an  existing  practice,  but  should  simply  enquire 
what  our  practice  ought  to  be.  One  of  the  most 
powerful  causes  of  the  slow  amendment  of  public  insti- 
tutions, consists  in  this  circumstance,  that  most  men 
endeavor  rather  to  justify  what  exists  than  to  consider 
whether  it  ought  to  exist  or  not.  This  cause  operates 
upon  the  question  of  oaths.  We  therefore  invite  the 
reader,  in  considering  the  citation  which  follows,  to 
suppose  himself  to  be  one  of  the  listeners  at  the  Mount 


204  OATHS.  [ESSAY    II. 

— to  know  knothing  of  the  customs  of  the  present  day; 
and  to  have  no  desire  to  justify  them. 

' '  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them  of 
old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself  but  shalt 
perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths.  But  I  say  unto 
you,  Swear  not  at  all :  neither  by  heaven  for  it  is  God's 
throne,  nor  by  the  earth  for  it  is  his  footstool,  neither 
by  Jerusalem,  for  it  is  the  city  of  the  great  King. 
Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head,  because  thou 
canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black.  But  let  your 
communication  be  yea,  yea,  nay,  nay  ;  for  whatsoever  is 
more  than  these,  cometh  of  evil."  * 

If  a  person  should  take  a  New  Testament,  and  read 
these  words  to  ten  intelligent  Asiatics  who  had  never 
heard  of  them  before,  does  any  man  believe  that  a  sin- 
gle individual  of  them  would  think  that  the  words  did 
not  prohibit  all  oaths  ?  I  lay  stress  upon  this  consid- 
eration :  if  ten  unbiassed  persons  would,  at  the  first 
hearing,  say  the  prohibition  was  universal,  we  have  no 
contemptible  argument  that  that  is  the  real  meaning  of 
the  words.  For  to  whom  were  the  words  addressed  ? 
Not  to  schoolmen,  of  whom  it  was  known  that  they 
would  make  nice  distinctions  and  curious  investiga- 
tions ;  not  to  men  of  learning,  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
cautiously  weighing  the  import  of  words — but  to  a 
multitude — a  mixed  and  unschooled  multitude.  It  was 
to  such  persons  that  the  prohibition  was  addressed  ;  it 
was  to  such  apprehensions  that  its  form  was  adapted. 

11  It  hath  been  said  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  for- 
swear thyself."  Why  refer  to  what  was  said  of  old 
time  ?  For  this  reason  assuredly  ;  to  point  out  that  the 
present  requisitions  were  different  from  the  former ; 
that  what  was  prohibited  now  was  differe?it  from  what 
was  prohibited  before.  And  what  was  prohibited 
before  ?  Swearing  falsely — Swearing  and  not  performing. 
*  Matt.  v.  33—37- 


CHAP.    VII  ]  OATHS.  205 

What  then  could  be  prohibited  now?  Swearing 
truly — Swearing,  even,  and  performing  :  that  is,  swear- 
ing at  all  ;  for  it  is  manifest  that  if  truth  may  not  be 
attested  by  an  oath,  no  oath  may  be  taken.  Of  old 
time  it  was  said,  ' '  Ye  shall  not  swear  by  my  name 
falsely."  *  "  If  a  man  swear  an  oath  to  bind  his  soul 
with  a  bond,  he  shall  not  break  his  word."  f  There 
could  be  no  intelligible  purpose  in  contradistinguish- 
ing the  new  precept  from  these,  but  to  point  out  a 
characteristic  difference  ;  and  there  is  no  intelligible 
characteristic  difference  but  that  which  denounces  all 
oaths.  Such  were  the  views  of  the  early  Christians. 
''The  old  law,"  says  one  of  them,"  is  satisfied  with 
the  honest  keeping  of  the  oath,  but  Christ  cuts  off  the 
opportunity  of  perjury."  %  In  acknowledging  that 
this  prefatory  reference  to  the  former  law,  is  in  my 
view  absolutely  conclusive  of  our  Christian  duty,  I 
would  remark  as  an  extraordinary  circumstance,  that 
Dr.  Paley,  in  citing  the  passage,  omits  this  introduc- 
tion and  takes  no  notice  of  it  in  his  argument. 

1 '  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all. ' '  The  words  are 
absolute  and  exclusive. 

' '  Neither  by  heaven,  nor  by  the  earth,  nor  by  Jeru- 
salem, nor  by  thy  own  head."  Respecting  this 
enumeration  it  is  said  that  it  prohibits  swearing  by  cer- 
tain objects,  but  not  by  all  objects.  To  which  a  suffi- 
cient answer  is  found  in  the  parallel  passage  in  James  : 
"Swear  not,"  he  says;  "neither  by  heaven,  neither 
by  the  earth,  neither  by  any  other  oath."§  This  mode 
of  prohibition,  by  which  an  absolute  and  universal 
rule  is  first  proposed  and  then  followed  by  certain 
examples  of  the  prohibited  things,  is  elsewhere  em- 
ployed in  Scripture.  "Thou  shalt  have  no  other 
gods  before  me.  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any 
*  Lev.  xix.  12.  f  Numb.  xxx.  2.  %  Basil. 

\  James  v.  12. 


206  Oaths.  [essay  ii. 

graven  image,  or  any  likeness  of  any  thing  that  is  in 
heaven  above,  or  that  is  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  that  is 
in  the  water  under  the  earth. ' '  *  No  man  supposes 
that  this  after-enumeration  was  designed  to  restrict  the 
obligation  of  the  law — Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods 
before  me.  Yet  it  were  as  reasonable  to  say  that  it 
was  lawful  to  make  idols  in  the  form  of  imaginary 
monsters  because  they  were  not  mentioned  in  the 
enumeration,  as  that  it  is  lawful  to  swear  any  given 
kind  of  oath  because  it  is  not  mentioned  in  the  enumer- 
ation. Upon  this  part  of  the  prohibition  it  is  curious 
that  two  contradictory  opinions  are  advanced  by  the 
defenders  of  oaths.  The  first  class  of  reasoners  says, 
The  prohibition  allows  us  to  swear  by  the  Deity,  but 
disallows  swearing  by  inferior  things.  The  second 
class  says,  The  prohibition  allows  swearing  by  inferior 
things,  but  disallows  swearing  by  the  Deity.  Of  the 
first  class  is  Milton.  The  injunction,  he  says,  "  does 
not  prohibit  us  from  swearing  by  the  name  of  God — 
We  are  only  commanded  not  to  swear  by  heaven,  &c. ' '  f 
But  here  again  the  Scripture  itself  furnishes  a  conclu- 
sive answer.  It  asserts  that  to  swear  by  heaven  is  to 
swear,  by  the  Deity :  ' '  He  that  shall  swear  by  heaven, 
sweareth  by  the  throne  of  God,  and  by  Him  that  sitteth 
thereon."  %  To  prohibit  swearing  by  heaven,  is  there- 
fore to  prohibit  swearing  by  God. — Amongst  the  second 
class  is  Dr.  Paley.  He  says,  "  On  account  of  the  rela- 
tion which  these  things,  [the  heavens,  the  earth,  &c] 
bore  to  the  Supreme  Being,  to  swear  by  any  of  them 
was  in  effect  and  substance  to  swear  by  Him ;  for 
which  reason  our  Saviour  says,  Swear  not  at  all ;  that 
is,  neither  directly  by  God  nor  indirectly  by  anything 
related  to  him. ' '  §  But  if  we  are  thus  prohibited  from 
swearing  by  any  thing  related  to  Him,  how  happens  it 

*  Exod.  xx.  3,  4.         f  Christ.  Doc.  p.  582. 

%  Matt,  xxiii.  22.         \  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  3,  p.  1,  c.  16. 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  207 

that  Paley  proceeds  to  justify  judicial  oaths  ?  Does  not 
the  judicial  deponent  swear  by  something  related  to 
God  ?  Does  he  not  swear  by  something  much  more 
nearly  related  than  the  earth  or  our  own  heads  ?  Is 
not  our  hope  of  salvation  more  nearly  related  than  a  mem- 
ber of  our  bodies  ? — But  after  he  has  thus  taken  pains 
to  show  that  swearing  by  the  Almighty  was  especially 
forbidden,  he  enforces  his  general  argument  by  saying 
that  Christ  did  swear  by  the  Almighty  !  He  says  that 
the  high  priest  examined  our  Saviour  upon  oath,  "by 
the  living  God;"  which  oath  he  took.  This  is 
wonderful ;  and  the  more  wonderful  because  of  these 
two  arguments  the  one  immediately  follows  the  other. 
It  is  contended,  within  half  a  dozen  lines,  first  that 
Christ  forbade  swearing  by  God,  and  next  that  he 
violated  his  own  command. 

"  But  let  your  communication  be  yea,  yea,  nay,  nay." 
This  is  remarkable  :  it  is  positive  superadded  to  nega- 
tive commands.  We  are  told  not  only  what  we  ought 
not,  but  what  we  ought  to  do.  It  has  indeed  been 
said  that  the  expression  "  your  communication,"  fixes 
the  meaning  to  apply  to  the  ordinary  intercourse  of 
life.  But  to  this  there  is  a  fatal  objection  :  the  whole 
prohibition  sets  out  with  a  reference  not  to  conversa- 
tional language  but  to  solemn  declarations  on  solemn 
occasions.  "  Oaths,  Oaths  to  the  I,ord,"  are  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  passage  ;  and  it  is  too  manifest  to  be 
insisted  upon  that  solemn  declarations,  and  not  every- 
day talk,  were  the  subject  of  the  prohibition. 

"Whatsoever  is  more  than  these,  cometh  of  evil." 
This  is  indeed  most  accurately  true.  Evil  is  the 
foundation  of  oaths  :  it  is  because  men  are  bad  that  it 
is  supposed  oaths  are  needed  :  take  away  the  wicked- 
ness of  mankind,  and  we  shall  still  have  occasion  for 
no  and  yes,  but  we  .shall  need  nothing  "more  than 
these."     And  this  consideration  furnishes  a  distinct 


2o8  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

motive  to  a  good  man  to  decline  to  swear.  To  take  an 
oath  is  tacitly  to  acknowledge  that  this  ' '  evil ' '  exists 
in  his  own  mind — that  with  him  Christianity  has  not 
effected  its  destined  objects. 

From  this  investigation  of  the  passage,  it  appears 
manifest  that  all  swearing  upon  all  occasions  is  pro- 
hibited. Yet  the  ordinary  opinion,  or  rather  perhaps 
the  ordinary  defence  is,  that  the  passage  has  no  refer- 
ence to  judicial  oaths.  "We  explain  our  Saviour's 
words  to  relate  not  to  judicial  oaths  but  to  the  practice 
of  vain,  wanton,  and  unauthorized  swearing  in  common 
discourse."  To  this  we  have  just  seen  that  there  is 
one  conclusive  answer :  our  Saviour  distinctly  and 
specifically  mentions,  as  the  subject  of  his  instructions, 
solemn  oaths.  But  there  is  another  conclusive  answer 
even  upon  our  opponents'  own  showing.  They  say 
first,  that  Christ  described  particular  forms  of  oaths 
which  might  be  employed,  and  next,  that  his  precepts 
referred  to  wanton  swearing  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  Christ 
described  what  particular  forms  of  wanton  swearing  he 
allowed  and  what  he  disallowed  !  .You  cannot  avoid 
this  monstrous  conclusion.  If  Christ  spoke  only  of 
vain  and  wanton  swearing,  and  if  he  described  the 
modes  that  were  lawful,  he  sanctioned  wanton  swear- 
ing provided  we  swear  in  the  prescribed  form. 

With  such  distinctness  of  evidence  as  to  the  univer- 
sality of  the  prohibition  of  oaths  by  Jesus  Christ,  it  is 
not  in  strictness  necessary  to  refer  to  those  passages  in 
the  Christian  Scriptures  which  some  persons  adduce  in 
favor  of  their  employment.  If  Christ  have  prohibited 
them,  nothing  else  can  prove  them  to  be  right.  Our 
reference  to  these  passages  will  accordingly  be  short. 

"  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living  God  that  thou  tell  us 
whether  thou  be  the  Christ,  the  son  of  God."  To 
those  who  allege  that  Christ,  in  answering  to  this 
"Thou  hast  said,"    took  an  oath,  a  sufficient  answer 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  209 

has  already  been  intimated.  If  Christ  then  took  an 
oath,  he  swore  by  the  Deity,  and  this  is  precisely  the 
very  kind  of  oath  which  it  is  acknowledged  he  himself 
forbade.  But  what  imaginable  reason  could  there  be 
for  examining  him  upon  oath  ?  Who  ever  heard  of 
calling  upon  a  prisoner  to  swear  that  he  was  guilty  ? 
Nothing  was  wanted  but  a  simple  declaration  that  he 
was  the  Son  of  God.  With  this  view  the  proceeding 
was  extremely  natural.  Finding  that  to  the  less 
urgent  solicitation  he  made  no  reply,  the  high  priest 
proceeded  to  the  more  urgent.  Schleusner  expressly 
remarks  upon  the  passage  that  the  words,  I  adjure,  do 
not  here  mean,  "  I  make  to  swear  or  put  upon  oath," 
but  '  •  I  solemnly  and  in  the  name  of  God  exhort  and 
enjoin."  This  is  evidently  the  natural  and  the  only 
natural  meaning  ;  just  as  it  was  the  natural  meaning 
when  the  evil  spirit  said,  "  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living 
God  that  thou  torment  me  not. ' '  The  evil  spirit  Surely 
did  not  administer  an  oath. 

' '  God  is  my  witness  that  without  ceasing  I  make 
mention  of  you  always  in  my  prayers."*  That  the 
Almighty  was  witness  to*  the  subject  of  his  prayers  is 
most  true  ;  but  to  state  this  truth  is  not  to  swear. 
Neither  this  language  nor  that  which  is  indicated 
below,  contains  the  characteristics  of  an  oath  according 
to  the  definitions  even  of  those  who  urge  the  expres- 
sions. None  of  them  contain  according  to  Milton's 
definition,  "a  curse  upon  ourselves;"  nor  according 
to  Paley's  "an  invocation  of  God's  vengeance." 
Similar  language,  but  in  a  more  emphatic  form  is  em- 
ployed in  writing  to  the  Corinthian  converts.  It  ap- 
pears from  2  Cor.  1 1 .  that  Paul  had  resolved  not  again 
to  go  to  Corinth  in  heaviness,  lest  he  should  make 
them  sorry.  And  to  assure  them  why  he  had  made 
this  resolution  he  says,  - '  I  call  God  for  a  record  upon 
*  Rom.  i.  9.     See  also  1  Thess.  ii.  5.  and  Gal.  i.  20. 


2IO  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

my  soul  that  to  spare  you  I  came  out  as  yet  unto 
Corinth."  In  order  to  show  this  to  be  an  oath,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  show  that  the  apostle  imprecated  the 
vengeance  of  God  if  he  did  not  speak  the  truth.  Who 
can  show  this  ? — The  expression  appears  to  me  to  be 
only  an  emphatical  mode  of  saying,  God  is  witness ; 
or  as  the  expression  is  sometimes  employed  in  the 
present  day,  God  knows  that  such  was  my  endeavor  or 
desire. 

The  next  and  the  last  argument  is  of  a  very  excep- 
tionable class  ;  it  is  founded  upon  silence.  ' '  For  men 
verily  swear  by  the  greater,  and  an  oath  for  confirma- 
tion is  to  them  an  end  of  all  strife. ' '  *  Respecting  this 
it  is  said  that  it  ' '  speaks  of  the  custom  of  swearing 
judicially  without  any  mark  of  censure  or  disapproba- 
tion. ' '  Will  it  then  be  contended  that  whatever  an 
apostle  mentions  without  reprobating,  he  approves? 
The  same  apostle  speaks  just  in  the  same  manner  of  the 
pagan  games ;  of  running  a  race  for  prizes  and  of 
" striving  for  the  mastery."  Yet  who  would  admit 
the  argument,  that  because  Paul  did  not  then  censure 
the  games,  he  thought  them  right  !  The  existing 
custom  both  of  swearing  and  of  the  games,  are  adduced 
merely  by  way  of  illustration  of  the  writer's  subject. 

Respecting  the  lawfulness  of  oaths,  then,  as  de- 
termined by  the  Christian  Scriptures,  how  does  the 
balance  of  evidence  stand  ?  On  the  one  side,  we  have 
plain  emphatical  prohibitions — prohibitions,  of  which 
the  distinctness  is  more  fully  proved  the  more  they  are 
investigated  ;  on  the  other  we  have — counter  pre- 
cepts ?  No ;  it  is  not  even  pretended  ;  but  we  have 
examples  of  the  use  of  language,  of  which  it  is  saying 
much  to  say,  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  are  oaths 
or  not.  How,  then,  would  the  man  of  reason  and  of 
philosophy  decide  ? — M  Many  of  the  Christian  fathers," 

*  Heb.  vi.  16. 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  211 

says  Grotius,  "condemned  all  oaths  without  excep- 
tion."* Grotius  was  himself  an  advocate  of  oaths. 
11 1  say  nothing  of  perjury,"  says  Tertullian,  "since 
sweari?ig  itself  is  unlawful  to  Christians. ' '  f  Chrys- 
ostom  says,  "  Do  not  say  to  me,  I  swear  for  a  just  pur- 
pose :  it  is  no  longer  lawful  for  thee  to  swear  either 
justly  or  unjustly."  |  "He  who,"  says  Gregory  of 
Nysse,  ' '  has  precluded  murder  by  taking  away  anger, 
and  who  has  taken  away  the  pollution  of  adultery  by 
subduing  desire,  has  expelled  from  our  life  the  curse 
of  perjury  by  forbidding  us  to  swear  ;  for  where  there 
is  no  oath,  there  can  be  no  infringement  of  it."§ 
Such  is  the  conviction  which  the  language  of 
Christ  conveyed  to  the  early  converts  to  his  pure 
religion  ;  and  such  is  the  conviction  which  I  think  it 
would  convey  to  us  if  custom  had  not  familiarized  us 
with  the  evil,  and  if  we  did  not  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment rather  to  find  justifications  of  our  practice,  than 
to  discover  the  truth  and  to  apply  it  to  our  conduct. 

EFFICACY  OF  OATHS  AS  SECURITIES  FOR  VERACITY. 

Men  naturally  speak  the  truth  unless  they  have  some 
inducements  to  falsehood.  When  they  have  such  in- 
ducements what  is  it  that  overcomes  them  and  still 
prompts  them  to  speak  the  truth  ? 

Considerations  of  duty,  founded  upon  religion  : 

The  apprehension  of  the  ill  opinion  of  other  men  : 

The  fear  of  legal  penalties. 

I.  It  is  obvious  that  the  intervention  of  an  oath  is 
designed  to  strengthen  only  the  first  of  these  motives — 
that  is,  the  religious  sanction.  I  say  to  strengthen  the 
religious  sanction.  No  one  supposses  it  creates  that 
sanction;  because  people  know  that  the  sanction  is  felt 
to  apply  to  falsehood  as  well  as  to  perjury.    The  advant- 

*  Rights  of  War  and  Peace.         f  De  Idol.  cap.  II. 

%  In  Gen.  ii.  Horn.  xv.  \  In  Cant.  Home.  13. 


UNIVERSITY 
Or  r.,,rnoi&\K 


212  OATHS.  [ESSAY  II. 

age  of  an  oath,  then,  if  advantage  there  be,  is  in  the 
increased  power  which  it  gives  to  sentiments  of  duty 
founded  upon  religion.  Now,  it  will  be  our  endeavor 
to  show  that  this  increased  power  is  small ;  that,  in 
fact,  the  oath,  as  such,  adds  very  little  to  the  motives 
to  veracity.  What  class  of  men  will  the  reader  select 
in  order  to  illustrate  its  greatest  power  ? 

Good  men?  They  will  speak  the  truth  whether 
without  an  oath  or  with  it.  They  know  that  God  has 
appended  to  falsehood  as  to  perjury  the  threat  of  his 
displeasure  and  of  punishment  in  futurity.  Upon  them 
religion  possesses  its  rightful  influence  without  the  in- 
tervention of  an  oath. 

Bad  men?  Men  who  care  nothing  for  religion? 
They  will  care  nothing  for  it  though  they  take  an  oath. 

Men  of  ambigious  character?  Men  on  whom  the 
sanctions  of  religion  are  sometimes  operative  and  some- 
times not  ?  Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  to  these  the 
solemnity  of  an  oath  is  necessary  to  rouse  their  latent 
apprehensions,  and  to  bind  them  to  veracity.  But 
these  persons  do  not  go  before  a  legal  officer  or  into  a 
court  of  justice  as  they  go  into  a  parlor  or  meet  an 
acquaintance  in  the  street.  Recollection  of  mind  is 
forced  upon  them  by  the  circumstances  of  their  situa- 
tion. The  court  and  the  forms  of  law,  and  the  audi- 
ence, and  the  after  publicity  of  the  evidence,  fix  the 
attention  even  of  the  careless.  The  man  of  only  occa- 
sional seriousness,  is  serious  then;  and  if  in  their  hours 
of  seriousness,  such  persons  regard  the  sanctions  of  re- 
ligion, they  will  regard  them  in  a  court  of  justice 
though  without  an  oath. 

Yet  it  may  be  supposed  by  the  reader  that  the  solem- 
nity of  a  specific  imprecation  of  the  Divine  vengeance 
would,  nevertheless,  frequently  add  stronger  motives 
to  adhere  to  truth.  But  what  is  the  evidence  of  exper- 
ience ?     After  testimony  has  been  given  on  affirmation, 


CHAP.   VII.]  OATHS.  213 

the  parties  are  sometimes  examined  on  the  same  sub- 
ject upon  oath.  Now  Pothier  says,  "  In  forty  years  of 
practice,  I  have  only  met  two  instances  where  the  part- 
ies, in  the  case  of  an  oath  offered  after  evidence  have 
been  prevented  by  a  sense  of  religion  from  persisting  in 
their  testimonies."  Two  instances  in  forty  years;  and 
even  with  respect  to  these  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that 
one  great  reason  why  simple  affirmations  do  not  bind 
men  is,  that  their  obligation  is  artificially  diminished 
(as  we  shall  presently  see)  by  the  employment  of  oaths. 
To  the  evidence  resulting  from  these  truths  I  know  of 
but  one  limitary  consideration  ;  and  to  this  the  reader 
must  attach  such  weight  as  he  thinks  it  deserves — that 
a  man  on  whom  an  oath  had  been  originally  imposed 
might  then  have  been  bound  to  veracity,  who  would 
not  incur  the  shame  of  having  lied  by  refusing  after- 
wards to  confirm  his  falsehoods  with  an  oath. 

II.  The  next  inducement  to  adhere  to  truth  is  the 
apprehension  of  the  ill  opinion  of  others.  And  this  in- 
ducement, either  in  its  direct  or  indirect  operation,  will 
be  found  to  be  incomparably  more  powerful  than  that 
religious  inducement  which  is  applied  by  an  oath  as 
such.  Not  so  much  because  religious  sanctions  are  less 
operative  than  public  opinion,  as  because  public  opinion 
applies  or  detaches  the  religious  sanction.  Upon  this 
subject  a  serious  mistake  has  been  made  ;  for  it  has 
been  contended  that  the  influence  of  religious  motives 
is  comparatively  nothing — that  unless  men  are  impelled 
to  speak  the  truth  by  fear  of  disgrace  or  of  legal  penal- 
ties, they  care  very  little  for  the  sanctions  of  religion. 
But  the  truth  is,  that  the  sanctions  of  religion  are,  in  a 
great  degree,  either  brought  into  operation,  or  pre- 
vented from  operating,  by  these  secondary  motives. 
Religious  sanctions  necessarily  follow  the  judgments  of 
the  mind  ;  if  a  man  by  any  means  becomes  convinced 
that  a  given  action  is  wrong,  the  religious  obligation  to 


214  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

refrain  from  it  follows.  Now,  the  judgments  of  men 
respecting  right  and  wrong  are  very  powerfully  affected 
by  public  opinion.  It  commonly  happens  that  that 
which  a  man  has  been  habitually  taught  to  think  wrong, 
he  does  think  wrong.  Men  are  thus  taught  by  public 
opinion.  So  that  if  the  public  attach  disgrace  to  any 
species  of  mendacity  or  perjury,  the  religious  sanction 
will  commonly  apply  to  that  species.  If  there  are  in- 
stances of  mendacity  or  perjury  to  which  public  disap- 
probation does  not  attach — to  those  instances  the  relig- 
ious sanction  will  commonly  not  apply,  or  apply  but 
weakly.  The  power  of  public  opinion  in  binding  to 
veracity  is  therefore  twofold.  It  has  its  direct  influ- 
ence arising  from  the  fear  which  all  men  feel  of  the  dis- 
approbation of  others,  and  the  indirect  influence  aris- 
ing from  the  fact  that  public  opinion  applies  the  sanc- 
tions of  religion. 

III.  Of  the  influence  of  legal  penalties  in  binding  to 
veracity,  little  needs  to  be  said.  It  is  obvious  that  if 
they  induce  men  to  refrain  from  theft  and  violence, 
they  wili  induce  men  to  refrain  from  perjury.  But  it 
may  be  remarked,  that  the  legal  penalty  tends  to  give 
vigor  and  efficiency  to  public  opinion.  He  whom  the 
law  punishes  as  a  criminal,  is  generally  regarded  as  a 
criminal  by  the  world. 

Now  that  which  we  affirm  is  this — that  unless 
public  opinion  or  legal  penalties  enforce  veracity, 
very  little  will  be  added  by  an  oath  to  the  motives 
to  veracity  more  than  would  subsist  in  the  case 
of  simple  affirmation.  The  observance  of  the  Ox- 
ford statutes  is  promised  by  the  members  on  oath 
— yet  no  one  observes  them.  They  swear  to  observe 
them,  they  imprecate  the  Divine  vengeance  if  they 
do  not  observe  them,  and  yet  they  disregard  them 
every  day.  The  oath  then  is  of  no  avail.  An  oath, 
as  such,  does  not  here  bind  men's  consciences.     And 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  215 

why  ?  Because  those  sanctions  by  which  men's  con- 
sciences are  bound,  are  not  applied.  The  law  applies 
none :  public  opinion  applies  none :  and  therefore 
the  religious  sanction  is  weak  ;  too  weak  with  most 
men  to  avail.  Not  that  no  motives  founded  upon 
religion  present  themselves  to  the  mind ;  for  I 
doubt  not  there  are  good  men  who  would  refuse  to 
take  these  oaths  simply  in  consequence  of  religious 
motives :  but  constant  experience  shows  that  these 
men  are  comparatively  few  ;  and  if  any  one  should  say 
that  upon  them  an  oath  is  influential,  we  answer,  that 
they  are  precisely  the  very  persons  who  would  be 
bound  by  their  simple  promises  without  an  oath. 

The  oaths  of  jurymen  afford  another  instance. 
Jurymen  swear  that  they  will  give  a  verdict  according 
to  the  evidence,  and  yet  it  is  perfectly  well  known  that 
they  often  assent  to  a  verdict  which  they  believe  to  be 
contrary  to  that  evidence.  They  do  not  all  coincide  in 
the  verdict  which  the  foreman  pronounces,  it  is  indeed 
often  impossible  that  they  should  coincide.  This  per- 
jury is  committed  by  multitudes ;  yet  what  juryman 
cares  for  it,  or  refuses,  in  consequence  of  his  oath,  to 
deliver  a  verdict  which  he  believes  to  be  improper? 
The  reason  that  they  do  not  care  is,  that  the  oath,  as 
such,  does  not  bind  their  consciences.  It  stands  alone. 
The  public  do  not  often  reprobate  the  violation  of  such 
oaths  ;  the  law  does  not  punish  it ;  jurymen  learn  to 
think  that  it  is  no  harm  to  violate  them ;  and  the  re- 
sulting conclusion  is,  that  the  form  of  an  oath  cannot 
and  does  not  supply  the  deficiency  ; — It  cannot  and 
does  not  apply  the  religious  sanction. 

Step  a  few  yards  from  the  jury-box  to  the  witness- 
box,  and  you  see  the  difference.  There  public  opinion 
interposes  its  power — there  the  punishment  of  perjury 
impends — there  the  religious  sanction  is  applied — and 
there,   consequently,   men  regard  the  truth.     If    the 


2l6  OATHS.  [ESSAY  II. 

simple  intervention  of  an  oath  was  that  which  bound 
men  to  veracity,  they  would  be  bound  in  the  jury-box 
as  much  as  at  ten  feet  off  ;  but  it  is  not. 

A  custom-house  oath  is  nugatory  even  to  a  proverb. 
Yet  it  is  an  oath  :  yet  the  swearer  does  stake  his  salva- 
tion upon  his  veracity  ;  and  still  his  veracity  is  not  se- 
cured. Why?  Because  an  oath,  as  such,  applies  to 
the  minds  of  most  men  little  or  no  motive  to  veracity. 
They  do  not  in  fact  think  that  their  salvation  is  staked, 
necessarily,  by  oaths.  They  think  it  is  either  staked 
or  not,  according  to  certain  other  circumstances  quite 
independent  of  the  oath  itself.  These  circumstances 
are  not  associated  with  custom-house  oaths,  and  there- 
fore they  do  not  avail. 

We  return  then  to  our  proposition — Unless  public 
opinion  or  legal  penalties  enforce  veracity,  very  little 
is  added  by  an  oath  to  the  motives  to  veracity,  more 
than  would  subsist  in  the  case  of  simple  affirmation. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  legislature  might,  if  it  pleased, 
attach  the  same  penalties  to  falsehood  as  it  now  at- 
taches to  perjury ;  and  therefore  all  the  motives  to 
veracity  which  are  furnished  by  the  law  in. the  case  of 
oaths,  might  be  equally  furnished  in  the  case  of  affirma- 
tion. This  is  in  fact  done  by  the  legislature  in  the 
case  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

It  is  also  obvious  that  public  opinion  might  be  ap- 
plied to  affirmation  much  more  powerfully  than  it  is 
now.  The  simple  circumstance  of  disusing  oaths  would 
effect  this.  Even  now,  when  the  public  disapproba- 
tion is  excited  against  a  man  who  has  given  false  evi- 
dence in  a  court  of  justice,  by  what  is  it  excited?  by 
his  having  broken  his  oath,  or  by  his  having  given 
false  testimony  ?  It  is  the  falsehood  which  excites  the 
disapprobation,  much  more  than  the  circumstance  that 
the  falseheod  was  in  spite  of  an  oath.  This  public  dis- 
approbation is  founded  upon  the  general  perception  of 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  21 7 

the  guilt  of.  false  testimony  and  of  its  perniciousness. 
Now  if  affirmation  only  was  employed,  this  public  dis- 
approbation would  follow  the  lying  witness,  as  it  now 
follows,  or  nearly  as  it  now  follows,  the  perjured  wit- 
ness. Every  thing  but  the  mere  oath  would  be  the 
same — the  fear  of  penalties,  the  fear  of  disgrace,  the 
motives  of  religion  would  remain ;  and  we  have  just 
shown  how  little  a  mere  oath  avails.  But  we  have 
artificially  dimished  the  public  reprobation  of  lying  by 
establishing  oaths.  The  tendency  of  instituting  oaths 
is  manifestly  to  diffuse  the  sentiment  that  there  is  a 
difference  in  the  degree  of  obligation  not  to  lie,  and  not 
to  swear  falsely.  This  difference  is  made,  not  so  much 
by  adding  stronger  motives  to  veracity  by  an  oath,  as 
by  deducting  from  the  motives  to  veracity  in  simple 
affirmations.  Let  the  public  opinion  take  its  own 
healthful  and  unobstructed  course,  and  falsehood  in 
evidence  will  quickly  be  regarded  as  a  flagrant  offence. 
Take  away  oaths,  and  the  public  reprobation  of  false- 
hood will  immediately  increase  in  power,  and  will  bring 
with  its  increase  an  increasing  efficiency  in  the  religious 
sanction.  The  present  relative  estimate  of  lying  and 
perjury  is  a  very  inaccurate  standard  by  which  to  judge 
of  the  efficiency  of  oaths.  We  have  artificially  reduced 
the  abhorrence  of  lying,  and  then  say  that  that  abhor- 
rence is  not  great  enough  to  bind  men  to  the  truth. 

Our  reasoning  then  proceeds  by  these  steps.  Oaths 
are  designed  to  apply  a  strong  religious  sanction  :  they 
however  do  not  apply  it  unless  they  are  seconded  by 
the  apprehension  of  penalties  or  disgrace.  The  appre- 
hension of  penalties  and  disgrace  may  be  attached  to 
falsehood,  and  with  this  apprehension  the  religious 
sanction  will  also  be  attached  to  it.  Therefore,  all 
those  motives  which  bind  men  to  veracity  may  be  ap- 
plied to  falsehood  as  well  as  to  oaths. — In  other  words, 
oaths  are  needless. 


2l8  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

But  in  reality  we  have  evidence  of  this  needlessness 
from  every  day  experience.  In  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  temporal  affairs,  an  oath  is  never  used.  The 
Houses  of  Parliament  in  their  examinations  of  witnesses 
employ  no  oaths.  They  are  convinced  (and  therefore 
they  have  proved)  that  the  truth  can  be  discovered 
without  them.  But  if  affirmation  is  thus  a  sufficient 
security  for  veracity  in  the  great  questions  of  a  legis- 
lature, how  can  it  be  insufficient  in  the  little  questions 
of  private  life  ?  There  is  a  strange  inconsistency  here. 
That  same  Parliament  which  declares,  by  its  every-day 
practice,  that  oaths  are  needless,  continues,  by  its 
every-day  practice,  to  impose  them  !  Even  more : 
those  very  men  who  themselves  take  oaths  as  a  neces- 
sary qualification  for  their  duties  as  legislators,  proceed 
to  the  exercise  of  these  duties  upon  the  mere  testimony 
of  other  men  ! — Peers  are  never  required  to  take  oaths 
in  delivering  their  testimony,  yet  no  one  thinks  that 
a  peer's  evidence  in  a  court  of  justice  may  not  be  as 
much  depended  upon  as  that  of  him  who  swears.  Why 
are  peers  in  fact  bound  to  veracity  though  without  an 
oath  ?  Will  you  say  that  the  religious  sanction  is  more 
powerful  upon  lords  than  upon  other  men  ?  The  sup- 
position were  ridiculous.  How  then  does  it  happen  ? 
You  reply,  Their  honor  binds  them  :  Very  well  ;  that  is 
the  same  as  to  say  that  public  opinion  binds  them.  But 
then,  he  who  says  that  honor,  or  anything  else  besides 
pure  religious  sanctions,  binds  men  to  veracity,  im- 
pugns the  very  grounds  upon  which  oaths  are  defended. 

Oath  evidence  again  is  not  required  by  courts- 
martial.  But  can  any  man  assign  a  reason  why  a  per- 
son who  would  speak  the  truth  on  affirmation  before 
military  officers,  would  not  speak  it  on  affirmation  be- 
fore a  judge?  Arbitrations  too  proceed  often,  perhaps 
generally,  upon  evidence  of  parole.  Yet  do  not  arbi- 
trators discover  the  truth  as  well  as  courts  of  justice? 


CHAP.    VII.]  OATHS.  219 

and  if  they  did  not,  it  would  be  little  in  favor  of  oaths, 
because  a  part  of  the  sanction  of  veracity  is,  in  the  case 
of  arbitration,  withdrawn.* 

But  we  have  even  tried  the  experiment  of  affirma- 
tions in  our  own  courts  of  justice,  and  tried  it  for  some 
ages  past.  The  Society  of  Friends  uniformly  give 
their  evidence  in  courts  of  law  on  their  words  alone. 
No  man  imagines  that  their  words  do  not  bind  them. 
No  legal  court  would  listen  with  more  suspicion  to  a 
witness  because  he  was  a  Quaker.  Here  all  the 
motives  to  veracity  are  applied  :  there  is  the  religious 
motive,  which  in  such  cases  all  but  desperately  bad 
men  feel :  there  is  the  motive  of  public  opinion  :  and 
there  is  the  motive  arising  from  the  penalties  of  the 
law.  If  the  same  motives  were  applied  to  other  men, 
why  should  they  not  be  as  effectual  in  securing  veracity 
as  they  are  upon  the  Quakers  ? 

We  have  an  example  even  yet  more  extensive.  In 
all  the  courts  of  the  United  States  of  America,  no  one 
is  obliged  to  take  an  oath.  What  are  we  to  conclude? 
Are  the  Americans  so  foolish  a  people  that  they  per- 
sist in  accepting  affirmations  knowing  that  they  do  not 
bind  witnesses  to  truth  ?  Or,  do  the  Americans  really 
find  that  affirmations  are  sufficient  ?  But  one  answer 
can  be  given  : — They  find  that  affirmations  are  suffi- 
cient :  they  prove  undeniably  that  oaths  are  needless. 
No  one  will  imagine  that  virtue  on  the  other  side  the 
Atlantic  is  so  much  greater  than  on  this,  that  while  an 
affirmation  is  sufficient  for  an  American  an  oath  is 
necessary  here. 

So  that  whether  we  enquire  into  the  moral  lawful- 
ness of  oaths,  they  are  not  lawful ;  or  into  their 
practical  utility,  they  are  of  little  use  or  of  none. 

EFFECTS  OF  OATHS. 
There  is  a  power  and  efficacy  in  our  religion  which 


220  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

elevates  those  who  heartily  accept  it  above  that  low 
moral  state  in  which  alone  an  oath  can  even  be  sup- 
posed to  be  of  advantage.  •  The  man  who  takes  an 
oath,  virtually  declares  that  his  word  would  not  bind 
him  ;  and  this  is  an  admission  which  no  good  man 
should  make — for  the  sake  both  of  his  own  moral 
character  and  of  the  credit  of  religion  itself.  It  is  the 
testimony  even  of  infidelity,  that  ' '  wherever  men  of 
uncommon  energy  and  dignity  of  mind  have  existed, 
they  have  felt  the  degradation  of  binding  their  asser- 
tions with  an  oath."*  This  degradation,  this  descent 
from  the  proper  ground  on  which  a  man  of  integrity 
should  stand,  illustrates  the  proposition  that  whatever 
exceeds  affirmation  ' '  cometh  of  evil. ' '  The  evil  origin 
is  so  palpable  that  you  cannot  comply  with  the  custom 
without  feeling  that  you  sacrifice  the  dignity  of  virtue. 
It  is  related  of  Solon  that  he  said,  "  A  good  man  ought 
to  be  in  that  estimation  that  he  needs  not  an  oath  ;  be- 
cause it  is  to  be  reputed  a  lessening  of  his  honor  if  he 
be  forced  to  swear. "  f  If  to  take  an  oath  lessened  a 
pagan's  honor,  what  must  be  its  effect  upon  a  Chris- 
tian's purity. 

Oaths,  at  least  the  system  of  oaths  which  obtains  in 
this  country,  tends  powerfully  to  deprave  the  moral 
character.  We  have  seen  that  they  are  continually 
violated — that  men  are  continually  referring  to  the 
most  tremendous  sanctions  of  religion  with  the  habitual 
belief  that  those  sanctions  impose  no  practical  obliga- 
tion. Can  this  have  any  other  tendency  than  to 
diminish  the  influence  of  religious  sanctions  upon  other 
things  ?  If  a  man  sets  light  by  the  Divine  vengeance 
in  the  jury-box  to-day,  is  he  likely  to  give  full  weight 
to  that  vengeance  before  a  magistrate  to-morrow  ?  We 
cannot  prevent  the  effects  of  habit.     Such   things  will 

*  Godwin :    Political    Justice,   vol.   2.  p.   633.     f  Stobceus : 
Serm.  3. 


CHAP.   VII.]  OATHS.  22t 

infallibly  deteriorate  the  moral  character,  because  they 
infallibly  diminish  the  power  of  those  principles  upon 
which  the  moral  character  is  founded. 

Oaths  encourage  falsehood.  We  have  already  seen 
that  the  effect  of  instituting  oaths  is  to  diminish  the 
practical  obligation  of  simple  affirmation.  The  law 
says,  You  must  speak  the  truth  when  you  are  upon 
your  oath  ;  which  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  is 
less  harm  to  violate  truth  when  you  are  not  on  your 
oath.  The  court  sometimes  reminds  a  witness  that  he 
is  upon  oath,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying,  If  you 
were  not,  we  should  think  less  of  your  mendacity. 
The  same  lesson  is  inculcated  by  the  assignation  of 
penalties  to  perjury  and  not  to  falsehood.  What  is  a 
man  to  conclude,  but  that  the  law  thinks  light  of  the 
crime  which  it  does  not  punish  ;  and  that  since  he  may 
lie  with  impunity,  it  is  not  much  harm  to  lie?  Com- 
mon language  bears  testimony  to  the  effect.  The  vul- 
gar phrase,  I  will  take  my  oath  to  it,  clearly  evinces 
the  prevalent  notion  that  a  man  may  lie  with  less  guilt 
when  he  does  not  take  his  oath.  No  answer  can  be 
made  to  this  remark,  unless  any  one  can  show  that  the 
extra  sanction  of  an  oath  is  so  much  added  to  the  obli- 
gation which  would  otherwise  attach  to  simple  affirma- 
tion. And  who  can  show  this?  Experience  proves 
the  contrary  :  ■ '  Experience  bears  ample  testimony  to 
the  fact,  that  the  prevalence  of  oaths  among  men 
(Christians  not  excepted)  has  produced  a  very 
material  and  a  very  general  effect  in  reducing  their 
estimate  of  the  obligation  of  plain  truth,  in  its  natural 
and  simple  forms.  "* — ' '  There  is  no  cause  of  insincerity, 
prevarication,  and  falsehood,  more  powerful  than  the 
practice  of  administering  oaths  in  a  court  of  justice."  f 

Upon  this  subject  the  legislator  plays  a  desperate 
game  against  the  morality  of  a  people.     He  wishes  to 

*  Gurney  :  Observations,  &c.  c.  X.     f  Godwin  :  v.  2.  p.  634. 


222  OATHS.  [ESSAY   II. 

make  them  speak  the  truth  when  they  undertake  an 
office  or  deliver  evidence.  Even  supposing  him  to  suc- 
ceed, what  is  the  cost?  That  of  diminishing  the 
motives  to  veracity  in  all  the  affairs  of  life.  A  man 
may  not  be  called  upon  to  take  an  oath  above  two  or 
three  times  in  his  life,  but  he  is  called  upon  to  speak 
the  truth  every  day. 

A  few,  but  a  few  serious,  words  remain.  The  in- 
vestigations of  this  chapter  are  not  matters  to  employ 
speculation  but  to  influence  our  practice.  If  it  be  in- 
deed true  that  Jesus  Christ  has  imperatively  forbidden 
us  to  employ  an  oath,  a  duty,  an  imperative  duty  is  im- 
posed upon  us.  It  is  worse  than  merely  vain  to  hear 
his  laws  unless  we  obey  them.  Of  him  therefore  who 
is  assured  of  the  prohibition,  it  is  indispensably  re- 
quired that  he  should  refuse  an  oath.  There  is  no 
other  means  of  maintaining  our  allegiance  to  God. 
Our  pretensions  to  Christianity  are  at  stake  :  for  he 
who,  knowing  the  Christian  law,  will  not  conform  to  it, 
is  certainly  not  a  Christian.  How  then  does  it  happen, 
that  although  persons  frequently  acknowledge  they 
thinks  oaths  are  forbidden,  so  few,  when  they  are  called 
upon  to  swear,  decline  to  do  it  ?  Alas,  this  offers  one 
evidence  amongst  the  many,  of  the  want  of  uncom- 
promising moral  principles  in  the  world — of  such  prin- 
ciples as  it  has  been  the  endeavor  of  these  pages  to  en- 
force— of  such  principles  as  would  prompt  us  and 
enable  us  to  sacrifice  every  thing  to  Christian  fidelity. 
By  what  means  do  the  persons  of  whom  we  speak  sup- 
pose that  the  will  of  God  respecting  oaths  is  to  be 
effected  ?  To  whose  practice  do  they  look  for  an  ex- 
emplification of  the  Christian  standard  ?  Do  they  await 
some  miracle  by  which  the  whole  world  shall  be  con- 
vinced, and  oaths  shall  be  abolished  without  the  agency 
of  man  ?  Such  are  not  the  means  by  which  it  is  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  Universal  I^ord  to  act.     He  effects  his  moral 


CHAP.    VIII.]  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  223 

purposes  by  the  instrumentality  of  faithful  men .  Where 
are  these  faithful  men  ?— But  let  it  be  :  if  those  who  are 
called  to  this  fidelity  refuse,  theirs  will  be  the  dishonor 
and  the  offence.  But  the  work  will  eventually  be  done. 
Other  and  better  men  will  assuredly  arise  to  acquire 
the  Christian  honor  and  to  receive  the  Christian  re- 
ward. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IMMORAL  AGENCY. 


Publication  and   circulation  of  books  —  Seneca  —  Circulating 
Libraries — Prosecutions — Political  affairs. 

A  grkat  portion  of  the  moral  evil  in  the  world,  is  the 
result  not  so  much  of  the  intensity  of  individual  wick- 
edness, as  of  a  general  incompleteness  in  the  practical 
virtue  of  all  classes  of  men.  If  it  were  possible  to  take 
away  misconduct  from  one  half  of  the  community  and 
to  add  its  amount  to  the  remainder,  it  is  probable  that 
the  moral  character  of  our  species  would  be  soon  bene- 
fited by  the  change.  Now,  the  ill  dispositions  of  the 
bad  are  powerfully  encouraged  by  the  want  of  upright 
examples  in  those  who  are  better.  A  man  may  de- 
viate considerably  from  rectitude,  and  still  be  as  good 
as  his  neighbors.  From  such  a  man,  the  motive  to 
excellence  which  the  constant  presence  of  virtuous 
example  supplies,  is  taken  away.  So  that  there  is 
reason  to  believe,  that  if  the  bad  were  to  become  worse, 
and  the  reputable  to  become  proportionably  better,  the 
average  virtue  of  the  world  would  speedily  be  increased. 

One  of  the  modes  by  which  the  efficacy  of  example 
in  reputable  persons  is  miserably  diminished,  is  by 
what  we  have  called  immoral  agency — by  their  being 
willing  to  encourage,  at  second  hand,  evils  which  they 


224  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  [ESSAY   II. 

would  not  commit  as  principals.  Linked  together  as 
men  are  in  society,  it  is  frequently  difficult  to  perform 
an  unwarrantable  action  without  some  sort  of  co-opera- 
tion from  creditable  men.  This  co-operation  is  not 
often,  except  in  flagrant  cases,  refused  ;  and  thus  not 
only  is  the  commission  of  such  actions  facilitated,  but 
a  general  relaxation  is  induced  in  the  practical  esti- 
mates which  men  form  of  the  standard  of  rectitude. 

Since,  then,  so  much  evil  attends  this  agency  in  un- 
warrantable conduct,  it  manifestly  becomes  a  good  man 
to  look  around  upon  the  nature  of  his  intercourse  with 
others,  and  to  consider  whether  he  is  not  virtually 
promoting  evils  which  his  judgment  deprecates,  or  re- 
ducing the  standard  of  moral  judgment  in  the  world. 
The  reader  would  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  that, 
if  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  slave  trade  should 
establish  a  manufactory  of  manacles,  and  thumbscrews, 
and  iron  collars  for  the  slave  merchants,  he  would  be 
grossly  inconsistent  with  himself.  The  reader  would 
perceive  too,  that  his  labors  in  the  cause  of  the  aboli- 
tion would  be  almost  nullified  by  the  viciousness  of  his 
example,  and  that  he  would  generally  discredit  preten- 
sions to  philanthropy.  Now,  that  which  we  desire  the 
reader  to  do  is,  to  apply  the  principles  which  this  illus- 
tration exhibits  to  other  and  less  flagrant  cases.  Other 
cases  of  co-operation  with  evil  may  be  less  flagrant 
than  this  ;  but  they  are  not,  on  that  account,  innocent. 
I  have  read,  in  the  life  of  a  man  of  great  purity  of 
character,  that  he  refused  to  draw  up  a  will  or  some 
such  document  because  it  contained  a  transfer  of  some 
slaves.  He  thought  that  slavery  was  absolutely  wrong  ; 
and  therefore  would  not,  even  by  the  remotest  im- 
plication, sanction  the  system  by  his  example.*  I  think 

*  One  of  the  publications  of  this  excellent  man  contains  a 
paragraph  much  to  our  present  purpose  :  "In  all  our  concerns, 
it  is  necessary  that  nothing  we  do  may  carry  the  appearance  of 


CHAP.    VIII.]  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  225 

he  exercised  a  sound  Christian  judgment,  and  if  all 
who  prepare  such  documents  acted  upon  the  same 
principles,  I  know  not  whether  they  would  not  so  in- 
fluence public  opinion  as  greatly  to  hasten  the  abolition 
of  slavery  itself.  Yet  where  is  the  man  who  would 
refuse  to  do  this,  or  to  do  things  even  less  defensible 
than  this  ? 

Publication  and  Circulation  of  Books. — It  is  a 
very  common  thing  to  hear  of  the  evils  of  pernicious 
reading,  of  how  it  enervates  the  mind,  or  how  it  de- 
praves the  principles.  The  complaints  are  doubtless 
just.  These  books  could  not  be  read,  and  these  evils 
would  be  spared  the  world,  if  one  did  not  write,  and 
another  did  not  print,  and  another  did  not  sell,  and 
another  did  not  circulate  them.  Are  those  then,  with- 
out whose  agency  the  mischief  could  not  ensue,  to  be 
held  innocent  in  affording  this  agency  !  Yet,  loudly 
as  we  complain  of  the  evil,  and  carefully  as  we  warn 
our  children  to  avoid  it,  how  seldom  do  we  hear  public 
reprobation  of  the  writers  !  As  to  printers,  and  book- 
sellers, and  library  keepers,  we  scarcely  hear  their 
offences  mentioned  at  all.  We  speak  not  of  those 
abandoned  publications  which  all  respectable  men  con- 
demn, but  of  those  which,  pernicious  as  they  are  con- 
fessed to  be,  furnish  reading-rooms  and  libraries,  and 
are  habitually  sold  in  almost  every  bookseller's  shop. 
Seneca  says,  ' '  He  that  lends  a  man  money  to  carry 
him  to  a  bawdy-house,  or  a  weapon  for  his  revenge, 
makes  himself  a  partner  of  his  crime."  He,  too,  who 
writes  or  sells  a  book  which  will,  in  all  probability,  in- 
jure the  reader,  is  accessory  to  the  mischief  which  may 

approbation  of  the  works  of  wickedness,  make  the  unrighteous 
more  at  ease  in  unrighteousness,  or  occasion  the  injuries  com- 
mitted against  the  oppressed  to  be  more  lightly  looked  over. ' ' 
— Considerations  on  the  True  Harmony  of  Mankind,  c  3,  by 
John  Woolman. 


226  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  [ESSAY   II. 

be  done  ;  with  this  aggravation,  when  compared  with 
the  examples  of  Seneca,  that  whilst  the  money  would 
probably  do  mischief  but  to  one  or  two  persons,  the 
book  may  injure  a  hundred  or  a  thousand.  Of  the 
writers  of  injurious  books,  we  need  say  no  more.  If 
the  inferior  agents  are  censurable,  the  primary  agent 
must  be  more  censurable.  A  printer  or  a  bookseller 
should,  however,  reflect,  that  to  be  not  so  bad  as 
another,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  being  innocent. 
When  we  see  that  the  owner  of  a  press  will  print  any 
work  that  is  offered  to  him,  with  no  other  concern 
about  its  tendency  than  whether  it  will  subject  him  to 
penalties  from  the  law,  we  surely  must  perceive  that 
he  exercises  but  a  very  imperfect  virtue.  Is  it 
obligatory  upon  us  not  to  promote  ill  principles  in 
other  men  ?  He  does  not  fulfil  the  obligation.  Is  it 
obligatory  upon  us  to  promote  rectitude  by  unimpeach- 
able example  ?  He  does  not  exhibit  that  example.  If 
it  were  right  for  my  neighbor  to  furnish  me  with  the 
means  of  moral  injury,  it  would  not  be  wrong  for  me 
to  accept  and  to  employ  them. 

I  stand  in  a  bookseller's  shop,  and  observe  his  cus- 
tomers successively  coming  in.  One  orders  a  lexicon, 
aud  one  a  work  of  scurrilous  infidelity  ;  one  Captain 
Cook's  Voyages,  and  one  a  new  licentious  romance. 
If  the  bookseller  takes  and  executes  all  these  orders 
with  the  same  willingness,  I  cannot  but  perceive  that 
there  is  an  inconsistency,  an  incompleteness,  in  his 
moral  principles  of  action.  Perhaps  this  person  is  so 
conscious  of  the  mischievous  effects  of  such  books,  that 
he  would  not  allow  them  in  the  hands  of  his  children, 
nor  suffer  them  to  be  seen  on  his  parlor  table.  But  if 
he  thus  knows  the  evils  which  they  inflict,  can  it  be 
right  for  him  to  be  the  agent  in  diffusing  them  ?  Such 
a  person  does  not  exhibit  that  consistency,  that  com- 
pleteness  of    virtuous    conduct,    without  which    the 


CHAP.    VIII.]  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  227 

Christian  character  cannot  be  fully  exhibited.  Step 
into  the  shop  of  this  bookseller's  neighbor,  a  druggist, 
and  there,  if  a  person  asks  for  some  arsenic,  the  trades- 
man begins  to  be  anxious.  He  considers  whether  it  is 
probable  the  buyer  wants  it  for  a  proper  purpose.  If 
he  does  sell  it,  he  cautions  the  buyer  to  keep  it  where 
others  cannot  have  access  to  it ;  and,  before  he  delivers 
the  packet,  legibly  inscribes  upon  it  poison.  One  of 
these  men  sells  poison  to  the  body,  and  the  other 
poison  to  the  mind.  If  the  anxiety  and  caution  of  the 
druggist  is  right,  the  indifference  of  the  bookseller 
must  be  wrong.  Add  to  which,  that  the  druggist 
would  not  sell  arsenic  at  all  if  it  were  not  sometimes 
useful ;  but  to  what  readers  can  a  vicious  book  be 
useful  ? 

Suppose  for  a  moment  that  no  printer  would  commit 
.such  a  book  to  his  press,  and  that  no  bookseller  would 
sell  it,  the  consequence  would  be,  that  nine-tenths  of 
these  manuscripts  would  be  thrown  into  the  fire,  or 
rather,  that  they  would  never  have  been  written.  The 
inference  is  obvious  ;  and  surely  it  is  not  needful  again 
to  enforce  the  consideration,  that  although  your 
refusal  might  not  prevent  vicious  books  from  being 
published,  you  are  not  therefore  exempted  from  the 
obligation  to  refuse.  A  man  must  do  his  duty  whether 
the  effects  of  his  fidelity  be  such  as  he  would  desire  or 
not.  Such  purity  of  conduct  might,  no  doubt,  circum- 
scribe a  man's  business,  and  so  does  purity  of  conduct 
in  some  other  professions  ;  but  if  this  be  a  sufficient 
excuse  for  contributing  to  demoralize  the  world,  if 
profit  be  a  justification  of  a  departure  from  rectitude,  it 
will  be  easy  to  defend  the  business  of  a  pickpocket. 

I  know  that  the  principles  of  conduct  which  these 
paragraphs  recommend,  lead  to  grave  practical  conse- 
quences :  I  know  that  they  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  business  of   a   printer  or  bookseller,  as  it  is  ordi- 


228  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  [ESSAY   II. 

narily  conducted,  is  not  consistent  with  Christian  up- 
rightness. A  man  may  carry  on  a  business  in  select 
works;  and  this,  by  some  conscientious  parsons,  is 
really  done.  In  the  present  state  of  the  press,  the  diffi- 
culty of  obtaining  a  considerable  business  as  a  book- 
seller without  circulating  injurious  works  may  fre- 
quently be  great,  and  it  is  in  consequence  of  this  diffi- 
culty that  we  see  so  few  booksellers  amongst  the  Quak- 
ers. The  few  who  do  conduct  the  business  generally 
reside  in  large  towns,  where  the  demand  for  all  books 
is  so  great  that  a  person  can  procure  a  competent  in- 
come though  he  excludes  the  bad. 

He  who  is  more  studious  to  justify  his  conduct  than 
to  act  aright  may  say,  that  if  a  person  may  sell  no  book 
that  can  injure  another,  he  can  scarcely  sell  any  book. 
The  answer  is,  that  although  there  must  be  some  diffi- 
culty in  discrimination,  though  a  bookseller  cannot 
always  inform  himself  what  the  precise 'tendency  of  a 
book  is — yet  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  judging  re- 
specting numberless  books,  that  their  tendency  is  bad. 
If  we  cannot  define  the  precise  distinction  between  the 
good  and  the  evil,  we  can,  nevertheless,  perceive  the 
evil  when  it  has  attained  to  a  certain  extent.  He  who 
cannot  distinguish  day  from  evening  can  distinguish  it 
from  night. 

The  case  of  the  proprietors  of  common  circulating 
libraries  is  yet  more  palpable  ;  because  the  majority  of 
the  books  which  they  contain  inflict  injury  upon  their 
readers.  How  it  happens  that  persons  of  respectable 
character,  and  who  join  with  others  in  lamenting  the 
frivolity,  and  worse  than  frivolity,  of  the  age,  never- 
theless daily  and  hourly  contribute  to  the  mischief, 
without  any  apparent  consciousness  of  inconsistency,  it 
is  difficult  to  explain.  A  person  establishes,  perhaps, 
one  of  these  libraries  for  the  first  time  in  a  country 
town.     He  supplies  the  younger  and  less  busy  part  of 


CHAP.    VIII.]  IMMORAL   AGENCY.  229 

its  inhabitants  with  a  source  of  moral  injury  from 
which  hitherto  they  had  been  exempt.  The  girl  who, 
till  now,  possessed  sober  views  of  life,  he  teaches  to 
dream  of  the  extravagances  of  love  ;  he  familiarizes  her 
ideas  with  intrigue  and  licentiousness  ;  destroys  her  dis- 
position for  rational  pursuits  ;  and  prepares  her,  it  may 
be,  for  a  victim  of  debauchery.  These  evils,  or  such 
as  these,  he  inflicts,  not  upon  one  or  two,  but  upon  as 
many  as  he  can  ;  and  yet  this  person  lays  his  head  upon 
his  pillow,  as  if,  in  all  this,  he  was  not  offending  against 
virtue  or  against  man  ! 

Politic ai.  Affairs. — The  amount  of  immoral 
agency  which  is  practised  in  these  affairs,  is  very 
great.  Look  to  any  of  the  continental  governments, 
or  to  any  that  have  subsisted  there,  how  few  acts  of 
misrule,  of  oppression,  of  injustice,  and  of  crime,  have 
been  prevented  by  the  want  of  agents  of  the  iniquity ! 
I  speak  not  of  notoriously  bad  men:  of  these,  bad 
governors  can  usually  find  enough :  but  I  speak  of  men 
who  pretend  to  respectability  and  virtue  of  character, 
and  who  are  actually  called  respectable  by  the  world. 
There  is  perhaps  no  class  of  affairs  in  which  the  agency 
of  others  is  more  indispensable  to  the  accomplishment 
of  a  vicious  act,  than  in  the  political.  Very  little — 
comparatively  very  little — of  oppression  and  of  the  po- 
litical vices  of  rulers  should  wTe  see,  if  reputable  men 
did  not  lend  their  agency.  These  evils  could  not  be 
committed  through  the  agency  of  merely  bad  men;  be- 
cause the  very  fact  that  bad  men  only  would  abet  them, 
would  frequently  preclude  the  possibility  of  their 
commission.  It  is  not  to  be  pretended  that  no  pub- 
lic men  possess  or  have  possessed  sufficient  virtue 
to  refuse  to  be  the  agents  of  a  vicious  government — 
but  they  are  few.  If  they  were  numerous,  especially 
if  they  were  as  numerous  as  they  ought  to  be, 
history,  even  very  modern  history,  would  have  had  a 


23O  IMMORAL  AGENCY.  [ESSAY    II. 

far  other  record  to  frame  than  that  which  now  devolves 
10  her.  Can  it  be  needful  to  argue  upon  such  things  ? 
Can  it  be  needful  to  prove  that,  neither  the  commands 
of  ministers,  nor  "systems  of  policy,"  nor  any  other 
circumstance,  exempts  a  public  man  from  the  obliga- 
tions of  the  moral  law  ?  Public  men  often  act  as  if  they 
thought  that  to  be  a  public  man  was  to  be  brought 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  a  new  and  a  relaxed  morality. 
They  often  act  as  if  they  thought  that  not  to  be  the 
prime  mover  in  political  misdeeds,  was  to  be  exempt 
from  all  moral  responsibility  for  those  deeds.  A 
dagger,  if  it  could  think,  would  think  it  was  not  re- 
sponsible for  the  assassination  of  which  it  was  the 
agent.  A  public  man  may  be  a  political  dagger,  but 
he  cannot,  like  the  dagger,  be  irresponsible. 

These  illustrations  of  immoral  agency  and  of  the 
obligation  to  avoid  it  might  be  multiplied,  if  enough 
had  not  been  offered  to  make  our  sentiments,  and  the 
reasons  upon  which  they  are  founded,  obvious  to  the 
reader.  Undoubtedly,  in  the  present  state  of  society, 
it  is  no  easy  task,  upon  these  subjects,  to  wash  our 
hands  in  innocency.  But  if  we  cannot  avoid  all 
agency,  direct  or  indirect,  in  evil  things,  we  can  avoid 
much:  and  it  will  be  sufficiently  early  to  complain  of 
the  difficulty  of  complete  purity,  when  we  have  dis- 
missed from  our  conduct  as  much  impurity  as  we  can. 


CHAP.    IX.]         INFXUENCiC   OF  INDIVIDUALS,    ETC.  23 1 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON  PUBLIC 
NOTIONS   OF  MORALITY. 

Public  notions  of  morality — Errors  of  public  opinion:  their 
effects — Duelling — Glory — Military  virtues — Military  talent — 
Bravery — Courage — Patriotism  not  the  soldier's  motive — Mili- 
tary fame — Public  opinion  of  unchastity:  In  women:  In  men 
— Power  of  character — Character  in  Legal  men — Fame — - 
Faults  of  great  men — The  Press — Newspapers — History:  Its 
defects:  Its  power. 

That  the  influence  of  public  opinion  upon  the  prac- 
tice of  virtue  is  very  great,  needs  no  proof.  Of  this 
influence  the  reader  has  seen  some  remarkable  illustra- 
tions in  the  discussion  of  the  efficacy  of  oaths  in  bind- 
ing to  veracity.*  There  is,  indeed,  almost  no  action 
and  no  institution  which  public  opinion  does  not  affect. 
In  moral  affairs  it  makes  men  call  one  mode  of  human 
destruction  murderous  and  one  honorable;  it  makes 
the  same  action  abominable  in  one  individual  and 
venial  in  another:  in  public  institutions,  from  a  village 
workhouse  to  the  constitution  of  a  state,  it  is  powerful 
alike  for  evil  or  for  good.  If  it  be  misdirected,  it  will 
strengthen  and  perpetuate  corruption  and  abuse;  if  it 
be  directed  aright,  it  will  eventually  remove  corruptions 
and  correct  abuses  with  a  power  which  no  power  can 
withstand. 

In  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  its  power  is  the  ne- 
cessity of  rectifying  public  opinion  itself.  To  con- 
tribute to  its  rectitude  is  to  exercise  exalted  philan- 
thropy— to  contribute  to  its  incorrectness  is  to  spread 
wickedness  and  misery  in  the  world.  The  purpose  of 
the  present  chapter  is  to  remark  upon  some  of  those 
subjects  on  which  the  public  opinion  appears  to  be  in- 
accurate, and  upon  the  consequent  obligation  upon  in- 
dividuals not  to  perpetuate  that  inaccuracy  and  its 
*  Essay  2,  chap.  7. 


232  INFLUENCE  OF   INDIVIDUALS  UPON         [ESSAY  .II. 

attendant  evils  by  their  conduct  or  their  language. 
Of  the  positive  part  of  the  obligation — that  which  re- 
spects the  active  correction  of  common  opinions  little 
will  be  said.  He  who  does  not  promote  the  evil  can 
scarcely  fail  of  promoting  the  good.  A  man  often  must 
deliver  his  sentiments  respecting  the  principles  and 
actions  of  others,  and  if  he  delivers  them,  so  as  not  to 
encourage  what  is  wrong,  he  will  practically  encourage 
what  is  right. 

It  might  have  been  presumed  of  a  people  who  assent 
to  the  authority  of  the  moral  law,  that  their  notions 
of  the  merit  or  turpitude  of  actions  would  have  been 
conformable  with  the  doctrines  which  that  law  delivers. 
Far  other  is  the  fact.  The  estimates  of  the  moral  law 
and  of  public  opinion  are  discordant  to  excess.  Men 
have  practiced  a  sort  of  transposition  with  the  moral 
precepts,  and  have  assigned  to  them  arbitrary  and  ca- 
pricious, and  therefore  new  and  mischievous,  stations 
on  the  moral  scale.  The  order  both  of  the  vices  and 
the  virtues  is  greatly  deranged. 

"How,  it  may  reasonably  be  asked,  do  these  strange 
incongruities  arise?  First,  men  practise  a  sort  of 
voluntary  deception  on  themselves ;  they  persuade 
themselves  to  think  that  an  offence  which  they  desire 
to  commit,  is  not  so  vicious  as  the  moral  law  indicates, 
or  as  others  to  which  they  have  little  temptation. 
They  persuade  themselves  again,  that  a  virtue  which 
is  easily  practised,  is  of  great  worth,  because  they  thus 
flatter  themselves  with  complacent  notions  of  their  ex- 
cellences at  a  cheap  rate.  Virtues  which  are  difficult 
they,  for  the  same  reason,  depreciate.  This  is  the  dic- 
tate of  interest.  It  is  manifestly  good  policy  to  think 
lightly  of  the  value  of  a  quality  which  we  do  not 
choose  to  be  at  the  cost  of  possessing  ;  and  who  would 
willingly  think  there  was  much  evil  in  a  vice  which  he 
practised     every     day? — That     which    a    man    thus 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS   OF   MORALITY.  233 

persuades  himself  to  think  a  trivial  vice  or  an  unimpor- 
tant virtue,  he  of  course  speaks  of  as  such  amongst  his 
neighbors.  They  perhaps  are  as  much  interested  in 
propagating  the  delusion  as  he  :  they  listen  with  will- 
ing ears,  and  cherish  and  proclaim  the  grateful  false- 
hood. By  these  and  by  other  means  the  public  notions 
become  influenced  ;  a  long  continuance  of  the  general 
chicanery  at  length  actually  confounds  the  public 
opinion  ;  and  when  once  an  opinion  has  become  a 
public  opinion,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  fallacy. 

If  sometimes  the  mind  of  an  individual  recurs  to  the 
purer  standard,  a  multitude  of  obstacles  present  them- 
selves to  its  practical  adoption.  He  hopes  that  under 
the  present  circumstances  of  society  an  exact  obedience 
to  the  moral  law  is  not  required  ;  he  tries  to  think  that 
the  notions  of  a  kingdom  or  a  continent  cannot  be  so 
erroneous  ;  and  at  any  rate  trusts  that  as  he  deviates 
with  millions,  millions  will  hardly  be  held  guilty  at  the 
bar  of  God.  The  misdirection  of  public  opinion  is  an 
obstacle  to  the  virtue  even  of  good  men.  He  who  looks 
beyond  the  notions  of  others,  and  founds  his  moral 
principles  upon  the  moral  law,  yet  feels  that  it  is  more 
difficult  to  conform  to  that  law  when  he  is  discounte- 
nanced by  the  general  notions  than  if  those  notions 
supported  and  encouraged  him.  What  then  must  the 
effect  of  such  misdirection  be  upon  those  to  whom  ac- 
ceptance in  the  world  is  the  principal  concern,  and 
who,  if  others  applaud  or  smile,  seem  to  be  indifferent 
whether  their  own  hearts  condemn  them  ? 

Now,  with  a  participation  in  the  evils  which  the  mis- 
direction of  public  opinion  occasions,  every  one  is 
chargeable  who  speaks  of  moral  actions  according  to  a 
standard  that  varies  from  that  which  Christianity  has 
exhibited.  Here  is  the  cause  of  the  evil,  and  here 
must  be  its  remedy.      "  It  is  an  important  maxim  in 


234  INFLUENCE   OE   INDIVIDUALS   UPON        [ESSAY    II. 

morals  as  well  as  in  education  to  call  things  by  their 
right  names."*  "To  bestow  good  names  on  bad 
things,  is  to  give  them  a  passport  in  the  world  under  a 
delusive  disguise,  "f  "  The  soft  names  and  plausible 
colors  under  which  deceit,  sensuality,  and  revenge  are 
presented  to  us  in  common  discourse,  weaken  by  de- 
grees our  natural  sense  of  the  distinction  between  good 
and  evil. "J  Public  notions  of  morality  constitute  a 
sort  of  line  of  demarcation,  which  is  regarded  by  most 
men  in  their  practice  as  a  boundary  between  right  and 
wrong.  He  who  contributes  to  fix  this  boundary  in 
the  wrong  place,  who  places  evil  on  the  side  of  virtue, 
or  goodness  on  the  side  of  vice,  offends  more  deeply 
against  the  morality  and  the  welfare  of  the  world,  than 
multitudes  who  are  punished  by  the  arm  of  law.  If 
moral  offences  are  to  be  estimated  by  their  conse- 
quences, few  will  be  found  so  deep  as  that  of  habitually 
giving  good  names  to  bad  things.  It  is  well  indeed 
for  the  responsibility  of  individuals  that  their  contri- 
bution to  the  aggregate  mischief  is  commonly  small. 
Yet  every  man  should  remember  that  it  is  by  the  con- 
tribution of  individuals  that  the  aggregate  is  formed  ; 
and  that  it  can  only  be  by  the  deductions  of  individuals 
that  it  will  be  done  away. 

Duelling. — If  two  boys  who  disagreed  about  a 
game  of  marbles  or  a  penny  tart,  should  therefore  walk 
out  by  the  river  side,  quietly  take  off  their  clothes, 
and  when  they  had  got  into  the  water,  each  try  to 
keep  the  other's  head  down  until  one  of  them  was 
drowned,  we  should  doubtless  think  that  these  two 
boys  were  mad.  If,  when  the  survivor  returned  to  his 
schoolfellows,  they  patted  him  on  the  shoulder,  told  him 
he  was  a  spirited  fellow,  and  that,  if  he  had  not  tried  the 
feat  in  the  water,  they  would  never  have  played  at  mar- 

*  Rees's  Encyclop.  Art.  Philos.  Moral. 

f  Knox's  Essays,  No.  34.  J  Blair,  Serm.  9. 


CHAP.   IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY.  235 

bles  or  any  other  game  with  him  again,  we  should  doubt- 
less think  that  these  boys  were  infected  w7ith  a  most  re- 
volting and  disgusting  depravity  and  ferociousness.  We 
should  instantly  exert  ourselves  to  correct  their  principles, 
should  feel  assured  that  nothing  could  ever  induce  us 
to  tolerate,  much  less  to  encourage  such  abandoned 
depravity.  And  yet  we  do  both  tolerate  and  encourage 
such  depravity  every  day.  Change  the  penny  tart  for 
some  other  trifle  ;  instead  of  boys  put  men,  and  instead 
of  a  river,  a  pistol — and  we  encourage  it  all.  We  vir- 
tually pat  the  survivor's  shoulder,  tell  him  he  is  a  man 
of  honor,  and  that,  if  he  had  not  shot  at  his  acquaint- 
ance, we  would  never  have  dined  with  him  again. 
"  Revolting  and  disgusting  depravity  "  are  at  once  ex- 
cluded from  our  vocabulary.  We  substitute  such 
phrases  as  ' '  the  course  which  a  gentleman  is  obliged  to 
pursue" — "it  was  necessary  to  his  honor" — "one 
could  not  have  associated  with  him  if  he  had  not 
fought. ' ' — We  are  the  schoolboys,  grown  up  ;  and  by 
the  absurdity,  and  more  than  absurdity  of  our  phrases 
and  actions,  shooting  or  drowning  (it  matters  not 
which)  becomes  the  practice  of  the  national  school. 

It  is  not  a  trifling  question  that  a  man  puts  to  him- 
self when  he  asks,  What  is  the  amount  of  my  contribu- 
tion to  this  detestable  practice?  It  is  by  individual 
contributions  to  the  public  notions  respecting  it  that 
the  practice  is  kept  up.  Men  do  not  fire  at  one  another 
because  they  are  fond  of  risking  their  own  lives  or 
other  men's,  but  because  public  notions  are  such  as 
they  are.  Nor  do  I  think  any  deduction  can  be  more 
manifestly  just,  than  that  he  who  contributes  to  the 
misdirection  of  these  notions  is  responsible  for  a  share 
of  the  evil  and  the  guilt.  When  some  offence  has 
given  probability  to  a  duel,  every  man  acts  immorally 
who  evinces  any  disposition  to  coolness  with  either 
party  until  he  has  resolved  to  fight ;  and  if  eventually 


236  influence;  of  individuals  upon       [essay  ii. 

one  of  them  falls,  he  is  a  party  to  his  destruction. 
Every  word  of  unfriendliness,  every  look  of  indiffer- 
ence, is  positive  guilt;  for  it  is  such  words  and  such 
looks  that  drive  men  to  their  pistols.  It  is  the  same 
after  a  victim  has  fallen.  "I  pity  his  family,  but  they 
have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that  he  vindicated  his 
honor, ' '  is  equivalent  to  urging  another  and  another  to 
fight.  Every  heedless  gossip  who  asks,  "Have  you 
heard  of  this  affair  of  honor?"  and  every  reporter  of 
news  who  relates  it  as  a  proper  and  necessary  proced- 
ure, participates  in  the  general  crime. 

If  they  who  hear  of  an  intended  meeting  amongst 
their  friends  hasten  to  manifest  that  they  will  continue 
their  intercouse  with  the  parties  though  they  do  not 
fight — if  none  talks  of  vindicating  honor  by  demand- 
ing satisfaction — if  he  who  speaks  and  he  who  writes 
of  this  atrocity,  speaks  and  writes  as  reason  and  morals 
dictate,  duelling  will  soon  disappear  from  the  world. 
To  contribute  to  the  suppression  of  the  custom  is  there- 
fore easy,  and  let  no  man,  and  let  no  woman,  who  does 
not,  as  occasion  offers,  express  reprobation  of  the 
custom,  think  that  their  hands  are  clear  of  blood. 
They  especially  are  responsible  for  its  continuance 
whose  station  or  general  character  gives  peculiar  influ- 
ence to  their  opinions  in  its  favor. 

Glory:  Military  Virtues. — To  prove  that  war 
is  an  evil  were  much  the  same  as  to  prove  that  the 
light  of  the  sun  is  a  good.  And  yet,  though  no  one 
will  dispute  the  truth,  there  are  few  who  consider,  and 
few  who  know  how  great  the  evil  is.  The  practice  is 
encircled  with  so  many  glittering  fictions,  that  most 
men  are  content  with  but  a  vague  and  inadequate  idea 
of  the  calamities,  moral,  physical,  and  political,  which 
it  inflicts  upon  our  species.  But  if  few  men  consider 
how  prodigious  its  mischiefs  are  they  see  enough  to  agree 
in  the  conclusion,  that  the  less  frequently  it  happens 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS   OF   MORALITY.  237 

the  better  for  the  common  interests  of  man.  Sup- 
posing then  that  some  wars  are  lawful  and  unavoidable, 
it  is  nevertheless  manifest,  that  whatever  tends  to  make 
them  more  frequent  than  necessity  requires,  must  be 
very  pernicious  to  mankind.  Now,  in  consequence  of 
a  misdirection  of  public  notions,  this  needless  frequency 
exists.  Public  opinion  is  favorable,  not  so  much  to 
war  in  the  abstract  or  in  practice,  as  to  the  profession 
of  arms;  and  the  inevitable  consequence  is  this,  that 
war  itself  is  greatly  promoted  without  reference  to  the 
causes  for  which  it  may  be  undertaken.  By  attaching 
notions  of  honor  to  the  military  profession,  and  of  glory 
to  military  achievements,  three  wars  probably  have 
been  occasioned  where  there  otherwise  would  have  been 
but  one.  To  talk  of  the  "  splendors  of  conquest," 
and  the  u  glories  of  victory,"  to  extol  those  who  "fall 
covered  with  honor  in  their  country's  cause,"  is  to 
occasion  the  recurrence  of  wars,  not  because  they  are 
necessary,  but  because  they  are  desired.  It  is  in  fact 
contributing,  according  to  the  speaker's  power,  to  des- 
olate provinces  and  set  villages  in  flames,  to  ruin  thous- 
ands and  destroy  thousands — to  inflict,  in  brief,  all  the 
evils  and  the  miseries  which  war  inflicts.  ' '  Splend- 
ors,"— "Glories," — "Honors!" — the  listening  soldier 
wants  to  signalize  himself  like  the  heroes  who  are  de- 
parted; he  wants  to  thrust  his  sickle  into  the  fields  of 
fame  and  reap  undying  laurels: — How  shall  he  signal- 
ize himself  without  a  war,  and  on  what  field  can  he 
reap  glory  but  in  the  field  of  battle  ?  The  consequence 
is  inevitable:  Multitudes  desire  war; — they  are  fond  of 
war — and  it  requires  no  sagacity  to  discover,  that  to 
desire  and  to  love  it  is  to  make  it  likely  to  happen. 
Thus  a  perpetual  motive  to  human  destruction  is 
created,  of  which  the  tendency  is  as  inevitable  as  the 
tendency  of  a  stone  to  fall  to  the  earth.  The  present 
state    of     public    opinion     manifestly     promotes    the 


238  INFLUENCE)   OF   INDIVIDUALS  UPON         [FSSAY   II. 

recurrence  of  wars  of  all  kinds,  necessary  (if  such  there 
are)  and  unnecessary.  It  promotes  wars  of  pure  aggres- 
sion, of  the  most  unmingled  wickedness;  it  promoted 
the  wars  of  the  departed  Iyouises  and  Napoleons.  It 
awards  f '  glory  "  to  the  soldier  wherever  be  his  achieve- 
ments and  in  whatever  cause. 

Now,  waiving  the  after  consideration  as  to  the 
nature  of  glory  itself,  the  individual  may  judge  of  his 
duties  with  respect  to  public  opinion  by  its  effects. 
To  minister  to  the  popular  notions  of  glory  is  to  en- 
courage needless  wars;  it  is  therefore  his  duty  not  to 
minister  to  these  notions.  Common  talk  by  a  man's 
fireside  contributes  its  little  to  the  universal  evil,  and 
shares  in  the  universal  offence.  Of  the  writers  of 
some  books  it  is  not  too  much  to  suppose,  that  they 
have  occasioned  more  murders  than  all  the  clubs  and 
pistols  of  assassins  for  ages  have  effected.  Is  there  no 
responsibility  for  this? 

But  perhaps  it  will  afford  to  some  men  new  ideas  if 
we  enquire  what  the  real  nature  of  the  military  virtues 
is.  They  receive  more  of  applause  than  virtues  of  any 
other  kind.  How  does  this  happen  ?  We  must  seek  a 
solution  in  the  seeming  paradox,  that  their  pretensions 
to  the  characters  of  virtues  are  few  and  small.  They 
receive  much  applause  because  they  merit  little.  They 
could  not  subsist  without  it;  and  if  men  resolve  to 
practice  war,  and  consequently  to  require  the  conduct 
which  gives  success  to  war,  they  must  decorate  that 
conduct  with  glittering  fictions,  and  extol  the  military 
virtues  though  they  be  neither  .good  nor  great.  Of 
every  species  of  real  excellence  it  is  the  general  char- 
acteristic that  it  is  not  anxious  for  applause.  The 
more  elevated  the  virtue  the  less  the  desire,  and  the 
less  is  the  public  voice  a  motive  to  action.  What 
should  we  say  of  that  man's  benevolence  who  would 
not  relieve  a  neighbor  in  distress  unless  the  donation 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY.  239 

would  be  praised  in  a  newspaper  ?  What  should  we  say 
of  that  man's  piety  who  prayed  only  when  he  was 
"seen  of  men?"  But  the  military  virtues  live  upon 
applause;  it  is  their  vital  element  and  their  food,  their 
great  pervading  motive  and  reward.  Are  there,  then, 
amongst  the  respective  virtues  such  discordances  of 
character — such  total  contrariety  of  nature  and  essence  ? 
No,  no.  But  how,  then,  do  you  account  for  the  fact, 
that  whilst  all  other  great  virtues  are  independent  of 
the  public  praise  and  stand  aloof  from  it,  the  military 
virtues  can  scarely  exist  without  it  ? 

It  is  again  a  characteristic  of  exalted  virtue,  that  it 
tends  to  produce  exalted  virtues  of  other  kinds.  He 
that  is  distinguished  by  diffusive  benevolence,  is  rarely 
chargeable  with  profaneness  or  debauchery.  The  man 
of  piety  is  not  seen  drunk.  The  man  of  candor  and 
humility  is  not  vindictive  or  unchaste.  Can  the  same 
thing  be  predicated  of  the  tendency  of  military  vir- 
tues ?  Do  they  tend  powerfully  to  the  production  of 
all  other  virtues  ?  Is  the  brave  man  peculiarly  pious  ? 
Is  the  military  patriot  peculiarly  chaste  ?  Is  he  who 
pants  for  glory  and  acquires  it,  distinguished  by  un- 
usual placability  and  temperance?  No,  no.  How  then 
do  you  account  for  the  fact,  that  whilst  other  virtues 
thus  strongly  tend  to  produce  and  to  foster  one 
another,*  the  military  virtues  have  little  of  such  tend- 
ency, or  none  ? 

The  simple  truth,  however  veiled  and  however  un- 
welcome, is  this,  that  the  military  virtues  will  not/ 
endure  examination.  They  are  called  what  they  are 
not,  or  what  they  are  in  a  very  inferior  degree  to  that 
which  popular  notions  imply.  It  would  not  serve  the 
purposes  of  war  to  represent  these  qualities  as  being 
what  they  are:  we  therefore  dress  them  with  factitious 

*  "  The  virtues  are  nearly  related,  and  live  in  the  greatest 
harmony  with  each  other." — OpiE. 


-?40  INFLUENCE  OE   INDIVIDUALS  UPON        [ESSAY   II. 

and  alluring  ornaments;  and  they  have  been  dressed  so 
long  that  we  admire  the  show,  and  forget  to  enquire 
what  is  underneath.  Our  applauses  of  military  virtues 
do  not  adorn  them  like  the  natural  bloom  of  loveliness; 
it  is  the  paint  of  that  which,  if  seen,  would  not  attract, 
if  it  did  not  repel  us.  They  are  not  like  the  verdure 
which  adorns  the  meadow,  but  the  greenness  that  con- 
ceals a  bog.  If  the  reader  says  that  we  indulge  in 
declamation,  we  invite,  we  solicit  him  to  investigate 
the  truth.  And  yet,  without  enquiring  further,  there 
is  conclusive  evidence  in  the  fact,  that  glory,  that 
praise,  is  the  vital  principle  of  military  virtue.  Let  us 
take  sound  rules  for  our  guides  of  judgment,  and  it  is 
not  possible,  that  we  should  regard  any  quality  as  pos- 
sessing much  virtue  which  lives  only  or  chiefly  upon 
praise.  And  who  will  pretend  that  the  ranks  of  armies 
would  be  filled  if  no  tongue  talked  of  bravery  and 
glory,  and  no  newspaper  published  the  achievements  of 
a  regiment  ?* 

"  Truth  is  a  naked  and  open  daylight,  that  doth  not 
show  the  masques  and  mummeries  and  triumphs  of  the 
world  half  so  stately  and  daintily  as  candlelights,  "f 
Let  us  dismiss,  then,  that  candlelight  examination 
which  men  are  wont  to  adopt  when  they  contemplate 
military  virtues,  and  see  what  appearance  they  exhibit 
in  the  daylight  of  truth.  Military  talent,  and  active 
courage,  and  patriotism,  or  some  other  motive,  appear 
to  be  the  foundations  and  the  subjects  of  our  applause. 

*  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  an  intelligent  woman  say,  ' '  I  cannot 
tell  how  or  why  the  love  of  glory  is  a  less  selfish  principle  than 
the  love  of  riches:"*  and  it  is  pleasant  to  hear  one  of  our  then 
principal  Reviews  say,  ' '  Glory  is  the  most  selfish  of  all  passions 
except  love."f  That  which  is  selfish  can  hardly  be  very  vir- 
tuous. 

f  Lord  Bacon:  Essays. 


*  Memoirs  of  late  Jane  Taylor.         f  West.  Rev.  No.  13. 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS   OF1  MORALITY.  241 

With  respect  to  talent  little  needs  to  be  said,  since 
few  have  an  opportunity  of  displaying  it.  An  able 
general  may  exhibit  his  capacity  for  military  affairs  ; 
but  of  the  mass  of  those  who  join  in  battles  and  par- 
ticipate in  their  ' '  glories, ' '  little  more  is  expected  than 
that  they  should  be  obedient,  and  brave. 

Valor  and  bravery,  however,  may  be  exhibited  by 
the  many — not  by  generals  and  admirals  alone,  but  by 
ensigns  and  midshipmen,  by  seamen  and  by  privates. 
What  then  is  valor,  and  what  is  bravery  ?  ' '  There  is 
nothing  great  but  what  is  virtuous,  nor  indeed  truly 
great  but  what  is  composed  and  quiet."*  There  is 
much  of  truth  in  this.  Yet  where  then  is  the  greatness  of 
bravery,  for  where  is  the  composure  and  quietude  of  the 
quality  ?  ' '  Valor  or  active  courage  is  for  the  most  part 
constitutional,  and  therefore  can  have  no  more  claim  to 
moral  merit  than  wit,  beauty  or  health. ' '  f  Accordingly, 
the  question  which  we  have  just  asked  respecting 
military  talent,  may  be  especially  asked  respecting 
bravery.  Cannot  bravery  be  exhibited  in  common  by 
the  good  and  the  bad? — Yet  further.  ''It  is  a  great 
weakness  for  a  man  to  value  himself  upon  any  thing 
wherein  he  shall  be  outdone  by  fools  and  brutes. ' '  Is 
not  the  bravery  of  the  bravest  outdone  even  by  brutes. 
When  the  soldier  has  vigorously  assaulted  the  enemy, 
when  though  repulsed  he  returns  to  the  conflict,  when 
being  wounded  he  still  brandishes  his  sword,  till  it  drops 
from  his  grasp  by  faintness  or  death — he  surely  is 
brave.  What  then  is  the  moral  rank  to  which  he  has 
attained?  He  has  attained  to  the  rank  of  a  bull-dog. 
The  dog,  too,  vigorously  assails  his  enemy ;  when 
tossed  into  the  air  he  returns  to  the  conflict  ;  when 
gored  he  still  continues  to  bite,  and  yields  not  his  hold 
until  he  is  stunned  or  killed.     Contemplating  bravery 

>  *  Seneca,     f  Soame  Jenyns  :     Internal  Evid.  of  Christianity. 
Prop.  3. 


242  INFLtmNCK   OF   INDIVIDUALS   UPON         [KSSAY    II. 

as  such,  there  is  not  a  man  in  Britain  or  in  Europe 
whose  bravery  entitles  him  to  praise  which  he  must 
not  share  with  the  combatants  of  a  cockpit.  Of  the 
moral  qualities  that  are  components  of  bravery,  the 
reader  may  form  some  conception  from  this  lan- 
guage of  a  man  who  is  said  to  be  a  large  landed  pro- 
prietor, a  magistrate,  and  a  member  of  parliament. 
' '  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  evil  alone  does  not 
result  from  poaching.  The  risk  poachers  run  from 
the  dangers  that  beset  them,  added  to  their  occupation 
being  carried  on  in  cold  dark  nights,  begets  a  hardi- 
hood of  frame  and  contempt  of  danger  that  is  not  with- 
out its  value.  I  never  heard  or  knew  of  a  poacher 
being  a  coward.  They  all  make  good  soldiers ;  and 
military  men  are  well  aware  that  two  or  three  men  in 
each  troop  or  company,  of  bold  and  enterprising  spirits, 
are  not  without  their  effect  on  their  comrades. ' '  The 
same  may  of  course  be  said  of  smugglers  and  highway- 
men. If  these  are  the  characters  in  whom  we  are 
peculiarly  to  seek  for  bravery,  what  are  the  moral  qual- 
ities of  bravery  itself  !  All  just,  all  rational,  and  I 
will  venture  to  affirm  all  permanent  reputation  refers  to 
the  mind  or  to  virtue  ;  and  what  connection  has  animal 
power  or  animal  hardihood  with  intellect  or  goodness? 
I  do  not  decry  courage :  he  who  was  better  acquainted 
than  we  are  with  the  nature  and  worth  of  human 
actions,  attached  much  value  to  courage,  but  he  at- 
tached none  to  bravery.*  Courage  he  recommended 
by  his  precepts  and  enforced  by  his  example  :  bravery 
he  never  recommended  at  all.  The  wisdom  of  this  dis- 
tinction and  its  accordancy  with  the  principles  of  his 
religion  are  plain.  Bravery  requires  the  existence  of 
many  of  those  dispositions  which  he  disallowed. 
*  ' '  Whatever  merit  valor  may  have  assumed  among  pagans, 
with  Christians  it  can  pretend  to  none."  Soame  Jenyns  :  In- 
ternal Evid.  of  Christianity,  Prop.  3. 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC  NOTIONS  OF  MORALITY.  243 

Animosity,  the  desire  of  retaliation,  the  disposition  to 
injure  and  destroy — all  this  is  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  bravery,  but  all  this  is  incompatible  with  Christian- 
ity. The  courage  which  Christianity  requires  is  to 
bravery  what  fortitude  is  to  daring — an  effort  of  the 
mental  principles  rather  than  of  the  spirits.  It  is  a 
calm  steady  determinateness  of  purpose,  that  will  not 
be  diverted  by  solicitation  or  awed  by  fear.  "  Behold,  I 
go  bound  in  the  spirit  unto  Jerusalem,  not  knowing  the 
things  that  shall  befall  me  there  ;  save  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  witnesseth  in  every  city,  saying  that  bonds  and 
afflictions  abide  me.  But  none  of  these  things  move  me, 
neither  count  I  my  life  dear  u?ito  myself.  *  What  re- 
semblance has  bravery  to  courage  like  this?  This 
courage  is  a  virtue,  and  a  virtue  which  it  is  difficult  to 
acquire  or  to  practise;  and  we  have  heedlessly  or  ingen- 
iously transferred  its  praise  to  another  quality  which  is 
inferior  in  its  nature  and  easier  to  acquire,  in  order  that 
we  may  obtain  the  reputation  of  virtue  at  a  cheap  rate. 

Of  those  who  thus  extol  the  lower  qualities  of  our 
nature,  few  perhaps  are  conscious  to  what  a  degree 
they  are  deluded.  In  exhibiting  this  delusion  let  us 
not  forget  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  done.  The  popu- 
lar notion  respecting  bravery  does  not  terminate  in  an 
innoxious  mistake.  The  consequences  are  practically 
and  greatly  evil.  He  that  has  placed  his  hopes  upon 
the  praises  of  valor,  desires  of  course  an  opportunity  of 
acquiring  them,  and  this  opportunity  he  cannot  find 
but  in  the  destruction  of  men.  That  such  powerful 
motives  will  lead  to  this  destruction  when  even  am- 
bition can  scarcely  find  a  pretext,  we  need  not  the  tes- 
timony of  experience  to  assure  us.  It  is  enough  that 
we  consider  the  principles  which  actuate  mankind. 

And  if  we  turn  from  actions  to  motives,  from  bravery 
to  patriotism,  we  are  presented  with  similar  delusions, 
*  Acts  xx.  22. 


244  INFLUENCE  OF   INDIVIDUALS   UPON         [ESSAY    II. 

and  with  similar  mischiefs  as  their  consequence.  To 
"  fight  nobly  for  our  country,"  to  <(  fall  covered  with 
glory  in  our  country's  cause,"  to  "  sacrifice  our  lives 
for  the  liberties  and  laws  and  religion  of  our  country, ' ' 
are  phrases  in  the  mouth  of  multitudes.  What  do  they 
mean,  and  to  whom  do  they  apply?  We  contend,  that 
to  say  generally  of  those  who  perish  in  war  that  ' '  they 
have  died  for  their  country,"  is  simply  untrue  :  and 
for  this  simple  reason,  that  they  did  not  fight  for  it. 
It  is  not  true  that  patriotism  is  their  motive.  Why  is 
a  boy  destined  from  school  for  the  army  ?  Is  it  that  his 
father  is  more  patriotic  than  his  neighbor,  who  des- 
tines his  son  for  the  bar  ?  Or  if  the  boy  himself  begs 
his  father  to  buy  an  ensigncy,  is  it  because  he  loves 
his  country,  or  is  it  because  he  dreams  of  glory,  and 
admires  scarlet  and  plumes  and  swords  ?  The  officer 
enters  the  service  in  order  that  he  may  obtain  an'  in- 
come, not  in  order  to  benefit  his  fellow  citizens.  The 
private  enters  it  because  he  prefers  a  soldier's  life  to 
another,  or  because  he  has  no  wish  but  the  wish  for 
change.  And  having  entered  the  army,  what  is  the 
motive  that  induces  the  private  or  his  superiors  to 
fight  ?  It  is  that  fighting  is  part  of  their  business  ;  that 
is  one  of  the  conditions  upon  which  they  were  hired. 
Patriotism  is  not  the  motive.  Of  those  who  fall  in 
battle,  is  there  one  in  a  hundred  who  even  thinks  of 
his  country's  good  ?  He  thinks  perhaps  of  glory  and  of 
the  fame  of  his  regiment — he  hopes  perhaps  that  "  Sal- 
amanca "  or  ' '  Austerlitz ' '  will  henceforth  be  in- 
scribed on  its  colors  ;  but  rational  views  of  his  country's 
welfare  are  foreign  to  his  mind.  He  has  scarcely  a 
thought  about  the  matter.  He  fights  in  battle  as  a 
horse  draws  in  a  carriage,  because  he  is  compelled  to 
do  it,  or  because  he  has  done  it  before  ;  but  he  proba- 
bly thinks  no  more  of  his  country's  good  than  the  same 
horse,  if  he  were  carrying  corn  to  a  granary,  would 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS   OF   MORALITY.  245 

think  he  was  providing  for  the  comforts  of  his  master. 
The  truth  therefore  is,  that  we  give  to  the  soldier  that 
of  which  we  are  wont  to  be  sufficiently  sparing — a 
gratuitous  concession  of  merit.  If  he  but  "fights 
bravely,"  he  is  a  patriot  and  secure  of  his  praise. 

To  sacrifice  our  lives  for  the  liberties  and  laws  and  re- 
ligion of  our  native  land,  are  undoubtedly  high-sound- 
ing words  ;  but  who  are  they  that  will  do  it  ?  Who  is 
it  that  will  sacrifice  his  life  for  his  country  ?  Will  the 
senator  who  supports  a  war  ?  Will  the  writer  who  de- 
claims upon  patriotism  ?  Will  the  minister  of  religion 
who  recommends  the  sacrifice  ?  Take  away  war  and  its 
fictions,  and  there  is  not  a  man  of  them  who  will  do  it. 
Will  he  sacrifice  his  life  at  home  ?  If  the  loss  of  his  life 
in  London  or  at  York  would  procure  just  so  much  bene- 
fit to  his  country  as  the  loss  of  one  soldier's  in  the 
field,  would  he  be  willing  to  lay  his  head  upon  the 
block?  Is  he  willing,  for  such  a  coritribution  to  his 
country's  good,  to  resign  himself  without  notice  and 
without  remembrance  to  the  executioner  ?  Alas  for  the 
fictions  of  war  !  where  is  such  a  man  ?  Men  will  not 
sacrifice  their  lives  at  all  unless  it  be  in  war  ;  and  they 
do  not  sacrifice  them  in  war  from  motives  of  patriotism. 
In  no  rational  use  of  language,  therefore,  can  it  be 
said  that  the  soldier  "  dies  for  his  country." 

Not  that  there  may  not  be  or  that  there  have  not 
been  persons  who  fight  from  motives  of  patriotism. 
But  the  occurrence  is  comparatively  rare.  There  may 
be  physicians  who  qualify  themselves  for  practice  from 
motives  of  benevolence  to  the  sick  ;  or  lawyers  who 
assume  the  gown  in  order  to  plead  for  the  injured  and 
oppressed  ;  but  '  it  is  an  unusual  motive,  and  so  is 
patriotism  to  the  soldier. 

And  after  all,  even  if  all  soldiers  fought  out  of  zeal 
for  their  country,  what  is  the  merit  of  patriotism  itself  ? 
I  do  not  say  that  it  possesses  no  virtue,  but  I  affirm 


246  INFLUENCE  OF   INDIVIDUATES  UPON         [ESSAY    II. 

and  hope  hereafter  to  show,  that  its  virtue  is  extrava- 
gantly overrated,*  and  that  if  every  one  who  fought 
did  fight  for  his  country,  he  would  often  be  actuated 
only  by  a  mode  of  selfishness — of  selfishness  which 
sacrifices  the  general  interests  of  the  species  to  the  in- 
terests of  a  part. 

Such  and  so  low  are  the  qualities  which  have  ob- 
tained from  deluded  and  deluding  millions,  fame, 
honors,  glories.  A  prodigious  structure,  and  almost 
without  a  base  : — a  structure  so  vast,  so  brilliant,  so 
attractive,  that  the  greater  portion  of  mankind  are  con- 
tent to  gaze  in  admiration,  without  any  enquiry  into 
its  basis  or  any  solicitude  for  its  durability.  If,  how- 
ever, it  should  be  that  the  gorgeous  temple  will  be 
able  to  stand  only  till  Christian  truth  and  light  become 
predominant,  it  surely  will  be  wise  of  those  who  seek  a 
niche  in  its  apartments  as  their  paramount  and  final 
good,  to  pause  ere  they  proceed.  If  they  desire  a  rep- 
utation that  shall  outlive  guilt  and  fiction,  let  them 
look  to  the  basis  of  military  fame.  If  this  fame  should 
one  day  sink  into  oblivion  and  contempt,  it  will  not  be 
the  first  instance  in  which  wide-spread  glory  has  been 
found  to  be  a  glittering  bubble  that  has  burst  and  been 
forgotten.  Look  at  the  days  of  chivalry.  Of  the  ten 
thousand  Quixotes  of  the  middle  ages,  where  is  now 
the  honor  or  the  name  ?  Yet  poets  once  sang  their 
praises,  and  the  chronicler  of  their  achievements  be- 
lieved he  was  recording  an  everlasting  fame.  Where 
are  now  the  glories  of  the  tournament  ?     Glories 

"  Of  which  all  Europe  rang  from  side  to  side." 

Where  is  the  champion  whom  princesses  caressed  and 
nobles  envied  ?  Where  are  the  triumphs  of  Scotus  and 
Aquinas,  and  where  are  the  folios  that  perpetuated  their 
fame  ?  The  glories  of  war  have  indeed  outlived  these  ; 
*  Essay  III,  c.  9. 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY.  247 

human  passions  are  less  mutable  than  human  follies ; 
but  I  am  willing  to  avow  the  conviction,  that  these 
glories  are  alike  destined  to  sink  into  forgetfulness, 
and  that  the  time  is  approaching  when  the  applauses 
of  heroism  and  the  splendors  of  conquest  will  be  remem- 
bered only  as  follies  and  iniquities  that  are  past.  Let 
him  who  seeks  for  fame  other  than  that  which  an  era  of 
Christian  purity  will  allow,  make  haste  ;  for  every  hour 
that  he  delays  its  acquisition  will  shorten  its  duration. 
This  is  certain  if  there  be  certainty  in  the  promises  of 
Heaven. 

But  we  must  not  forget  the  purpose  for  which 
these  illustrations  of  the  military  virtues  are  offered  to 
the  reader  ; — to  remind  him  not  merely  that  they  are 
fictions,  but  fictions  which  are  the  occasion  of 
excess  of  misery  to  mankind — to  remind  him  that  it  is 
his  business,  from  considerations  of  humanity  and  of 
religion,  to  refuse  to  give  currency  to  the  popular  de- 
lusions— and  to  remind  him  that  if  he  does  promote 
them,  he  promotes,  by  the  act,  misery  in  all  its  forms  and 
guilt  in  all  its  excesses.  Upon  such  subjects,  men  are 
not  left  to  exercise  their  own  inclinations.  Morality 
interposes  its  commands ;  and  they  are  commands 
which,  if  we  would  be  moral,  we  must  obey. 

Unchastity.— No  portion  of  these  pages  is  devoted 
to  the  enforcement  of  moral  obligations  upon  this  sub- 
ject, partly  because  these  obligations  are  commonly 
acknowledged  how  little  soever  they  may  be  regarded, 
and  partly  because,  as  the  reader  will  have  seen,  the 
object  of  these  essays  is  to  recommend  those  applica- 
tions of  the  moral  law  which  are  frequently  neglected 
in  the  practice  even  of  respectable  men. — But  in  refer- 
ence to  the  influence  of  public  opinion  on  offences  con- 
nected with  the  sexual  constitution,  it  will  readily  be 
perceived  that  something  should  be  said,  when  it  is 
considered  that  some  of  the  popular  notions  respecting 


248  INFLUENCE  OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON         [ESSAY   II. 

them  are  extravagantly  inconsistent  with  the  moral 
law.  The  want  of  chastity  in  a  woman  is  visited  by 
public  opinion  with  the  severest  reprobation — in  men, 
with  very  little  or  with  none.  Now,  morality  makes 
no  such  distinction.  The  offence  is  frequently  adverted 
to  in  the  Christian  scriptures  ;  but  I  believe  there  is  no 
one  precept  which  intimates  that,  in  the  estimation  of 
its  writer,  there  was  any  difference  in  the  turpitude  of 
the  offence  respectively  in  men  and  women.  If  it  be 
in  this  volume  that  we  are  to  seek  for  the  principles  of 
the  moral  law,  how  shall  we  defend  the  state  of  popu- 
lar opinion?  "If  unchastity  in  a  woman,  whom  St. 
Paul  terms  the  glory  of  man,  be  such  a  scandal  and  dis- 
honor, then  certainly  in  a  man,  who  is  both  the  image 
and  glory  of  God,  it  must,  though  commonly  not  so 
thought,  be  much  more  deflowering  and  dishonor- 
able. "*  But  this  departure  from  the  moral  law,  like 
all  other  departures,  produces  its  legitimate,  that  is, 
pernicious  effects.  The  sex  in  whom  popular  opinion 
reprobates  the  offences,  comparatively  seldom  commits 
them  :  the  sex  in  whom  it  tolerates  the  offences,  com- 
mits them  to  an  enormous  extent.  It  is  obvious,  there- 
fore, that  to  promote  the  present  state  of  popular 
opinion,  is  to  promote  and  to  encourage  the  want  of 
chastity  in  men. 

That  some  very  beneficial  consequences  result  from 
the  strong  direction  of  its  current  against  the  offence 
in  a  woman,  is  certain.  The  consciousness  that  upon 
the  retention  of  her  reputation  depends  so  tremendous 
a  stake,  is  probably  a  more  efficacious  motive  to  its 
preservation  than  any  other.  The  abandonment  to 
which  the  loss  of  personal  integrity  generally  consigns 
a  woman,  is  a  perpetual  and  fearful  warning  to  the  sex. 
Almost  every  human  being  deprecates  and  dreads  the 
general  disfavor  of  mankind;  and  thus,  notwithstanding 
*  Milton  :  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  624. 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORAUTY.  249 

temptations  of  all  kinds,  the  number  of  women 
who  do  incur  it  is  comparatively  small. 

But  the  fact  that  public  opinion  is  thus  powerful  in 
restraining  one  sex,  is  a  sufficient  evidence  that  it 
would  also  be  powerful  in  restraining  the  other.  Waiv- 
ing for  the  present  the  question  whether  the  popular 
disapprobation  of  the  crime  in  a  woman  is  not  too 
severe — if  the  man  who  was  guilty  was  forthwith  and 
immediately  consigned  to  infamy  :  if  he  was  expelled 
from  virtuous  society,  and  condemned  for  the  remainder 
of  life  to  the  lowest  degradation,  how  quickly  would  the 
frequency  of  the  crime  be  diminished  !  The  reforma- 
tion amongst  men  would  effect  a  reformation  amongst 
women  too  ;  and  the  reciprocal  temptations  which  each 
addresses  to  the  other,  would  in  a  great  degree  be 
withdrawn.  If  there  were  few  seducers  few  would  be 
seduced  ;  and  few  therefore  would  in  turn  become  the 
seducers  of  men. 

But  instead  of  this  direction  of  public  opinion,  what 
is  the  ordinary  language  respecting  the  man  who  thus 
violates  the  moral  law ?  We  are  told  that  "he  is 
rather  unsteady  ;  "  that  "  there  is  a  little  of  the  young 
man  about  him  ;  "  that  "  he  is  not  free  from  indiscre- 
tions. ' '  And  what  is  he  likely  to  think  of  all  this  ? 
Why,  that  for  a  young  man  to  have  a  little  of  the 
young  man  about  him  is  perfectly  natural ;  that  to  be 
rather  unsteady  and  a  little  indiscreet  is  not,  to  be 
sure,  what  one  would  wish,  but  that  it  is  no  great 
harm  and  will  soon  wear  off.  To  employ  such  lan- 
guage is,  we  say,  to  encourage  and  promote  the  crime 
— a  crime  which  brings  more  wretchedness  and  vice 
into  the  world  than  almost  any  other  ;  and  for  which, 
if  Christianity  is  to  be  believed,  the  Universal  Judge 
will  call  to  a  severe  account.  If  the  immediate  agent 
be  obnoxious  to  punishment,  can  he  who  encouraged 
him   expect   to   escape?       I   am   persuaded   that   the 


250  INFLUENCE  OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON       [ESSAY   II. 

frequency  of  this  gross  offence  is  attributable  much 
more  to  the  levity  of  public  notions  as  founded  upon 
levity  of  language,  than  to  passion ;  and  perhaps, 
therefore,  some  of  those  who  promote  this  levity  may 
be  in  every  respect  as  criminal  as  if  they  committed 
the  crime  itself. 

Women  themselves  contribute  greatly  to  the  com- 
mon levity  and  to  its  attendant  mischiefs.  Many  a 
female  who  talks  in  the  language  of  abhorrence  of  an 
offending  sister,  and  averts  her  eye  in  contumely  if  she 
meets  her  in  the  street,  is  perfectly  willing  to  be  the 
friend  and  intimate  of  the  equally  offending  man.  That 
such  women  are  themselves  duped  by  the  vulgar  dis- 
tinction is  not  to  be  doubted — but  then  we  are  not  to 
imagine  that  she  who  practises  this  inconsistency  ab- 
hors the  crime  so  much  as  the  criminal.  Her  abhor- 
rence is  directed,  not  so  much  to  the  violation  of  the 
moral  law  as  to  the  party  by  whom  it  is  violated.  ' '  To 
little  respect  has  that  woman  a  claim  on  the  score  of 
modesty,  though  her  reputation  may  be  white  as  the 
driven  snow,  who  smiles  on  the  libertine  whilst  she 
spurns  the  victims  of  his  lawless  appetites."  No, 
no. — If  such  women  would  convince  us  that  it  is  the 
impurity  which  they  reprobate,  let  them  reprobate  it 
wherever  it  is  found  :  if  they  would  convince  us  that 
morals  or  philanthropy  is  their  motive  when  they 
spurn  the  sinning  sister,  let  them  give  proof  by  spurn- 
ing him  who  has  occasioned  her  to  sin. 

The  common  style  of  narrating  occurrences  and  trials 
of  seduction  &c,  in  the  public  prints,  is  very  mis- 
chievous. These  flagitious  actions  are,  it  seems,  a 
legitimate  subject  of  merriment ;  one  of  the  many  droll 
things  which  a  newspaper  contains.  It  is  humiliating 
to  see  respectable  men  sacrifice  the  interests  of  society 
to  such  small  temptation.  They  pander  to  the  ap- 
petite of  the  gross  and  idle  of  the  public  : — they  want 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS   OF   MORAUTY.  25 1 

to  sell  their  newspapers. — Much  of  this  ill-timed  merri- 
ment is  found  in  the  addresses  of  counsel,  and  this  is 
one  mode  amongst  the  many  in  which  the  legal  profes- 
sion appears  to  think  itself  licensed  to  sacrifice  virtue 
to  the  usages  which  it  has,  for  its  own  advantage, 
adopted.  There  is  cruelty  as  well  as  other  vices  in 
these  things.  When  we  take  into  account  the  intense 
suffering  which  prostitution  produces  upon  its  victims 
and  upon  their  friends,  he  who  contributes,  even  thus 
indirectly,  to  its  extension,  does  not  exhibit  even  a 
tolerable  sensibility  to  human  misery.  Even  infidelity 
acknowledges  the  claims  of  humanity  ;  and  therefore, 
if  religion  and  religious  morals  were  rejected,  this 
heartless  levity  of  language  would  still  be  indefensible. 
We  call  the  man  benevolent  who  relieves  or  diminishes 
wretchedness  :  what  should  we  call  him  who  extends 
and  increases  it? 

In  connection  with  this  subject,  an  observation  sug- 
gests itself  respecting  the  power  of  character  in  affect- 
ing the  whole  moral  principles  of  the  mind.  If  loss  of 
character  does  not  follow  a  breach  of  morality,  that 
breach  may  be  single  and  alone.  The  agent's  virtue 
is  so  far  deteriorated,  but  the  breach  does  not  open 
wide  the  door  to  other  modes  of  crime.  If  loss  of 
character  does  follow  one  offence,  one  of  the  great 
barriers  which  exclude  the  flood  of  evil  is  thrown  down  ; 
and  though  the  offence  which  produced  loss  of  char- 
acter be  really  no  greater  than  the  offence  with  which 
it  is  retained,  yet  its  consequences  upon  the  moral  con- 
dition are  incomparably  greater.  The  reason  is,  that 
if  you  take  away  a  person's  reputation  you  take  away 
one  of  the  principal  motives  to  propriety  of  conduct. 
The  laborer  who,  being  tempted  to  steal  a  piece  of 
bacon  from  the  farmer,  finds  that  no  one  will  take  him 
into  his  house  or  give  him  employment,  and  that 
wherever  he  goes  he  is  pointed  at  as  a  thief,  is  almost 


252  INFLUENCE  OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON        [ESSAY  II. 

as  much  driven  as  tempted  to  repeat  the  crime.  His 
fellow  laborer,  who  has  much  more  heinously  violated 
the  moral  law  by  a  flagitious  intrigue  with  a  servant 
girl,  receives  from  the  farmer  a  few  reproaches  and  a 
few  jests,  retains  his  place,  never  perhaps  repeats  the 
offence,  and  subsequently  maintains  a  decent  morality. 
It  has  been  said,  "Asa  woman  collects  all  her  virtue 
into  this  point,  the  loss  of  her  chastity  is  generally  the 
destruction  of  her  moral  principle."  What  is  to  be 
understood  by  collecting  virtue  into  one  point,  it  is  not 
easy  to  discover.  The  truth  is,  that  as  popular  notions 
have  agreed  that  she  who  loses  her  chastity  shall  re- 
tain no  reputation,  a  principal  motive  to  the  practice 
of  other  virtues  is  taken  away  : — she  therefore  disre- 
gards them  ;  and  thus  by  degrees  her  moral  principle 
is  utterly  depraved.  If  public  opinion  was  so  modi- 
fied that  the  world  did  not  abandon  a  woman  who  has 
been  robbed  of  chastity,  it  is  probable  that  a  much 
larger  number  of  these  unhappy  persons  would  return 
to  virtue.  The  case  of  men  offers  illustration  and 
proof.  The  unchaste  man  retains  his  character,  or  at 
any  rate  he  retains  so  much  that  it  is  of  great  import- 
ance to  him  to  preserve  the  remainder.  Public  opin- 
ion accordingly  holds  its  strong  rein  upon  other  parts 
of  his  conduct,  and  by  this  rein  he  is  restrained  from 
deviating  into  other  walks  of  vice.  If  the  direction  of 
public  opinion  were  exchanged,  if  the  woman's  offence 
was  held  venial  and  the  man's  infamous,  the  world 
might  stand  in  wonder  at  the  altered  scene.  We 
should  have  worthy  and  respectable  prostitutes,  while 
the  men  whom  we  now  invite  to  our  tables  and  marry 
to  our  daughters,  would  be  repulsed  as  the  most  aban- 
doned of  mankind.  Of  this  I  have  met  with  a  curious 
illustration. — Amongst  the  North  American  Indians 
"  seduction  is  regarded  as  a  despicable  crime,  and  more 
blame  is  attached  to  the  man  than  to  the  woman  : 


CHAP.    IX.  J  PUBtIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY.  253 

hence  the  offence  on  the  part  of  the  female  is  more 
readily  forgotten  and  forgiven,  and  she  finds  little  or 
no  difficulty  in  forming  a  subsequent  matrimonial 
alliance  when  deserted  by  her  betrayer,  who  is  gen- 
erally regarded  with  distrust ,  and  avoided  in  social  inter- 
course."* 

It  becomes  a  serious  question  how  we  shall  fix  upon 
the  degree  in  which  diminution  of  character  ought  to 
be  consequent  upon  offences  against  morality.  It  is 
not  I  think  too  much  to  say,  that  no  single  crime,  once 
committed,  under  the  influence  perhaps  of  strong  temp- 
tation, ought  to  occasion  such  a  loss  of  character  as  to 
make  the  individual  regard  himself  as  abandoned.  I 
make  no  exceptions — not  even  for  murder.  I  am  per- 
suaded that  some  murders  are  committed  with  less  of 
personal  guilt  than  is  sometimes  involved  in  much 
smaller  crimes  ;  but  however  that  may  be,  there  is  no 
reason  why,  even  to,  the  murderer,  the  motives  and  the 
avenues  to  amendment  should  be  closed.  Still  less 
ought  they  to  be  closed  against  the  female  who  is  per- 
haps the  victim — strictly  the  victim  of  seduction.  Yet 
if  the  public  do  not  express,  and  strongly  express,  their 
disapprobation,  we  have  seen  that  they  practically  en 
courage  offences.  In  this  difficulty  I  know  of  no  better 
and  no  other  guide  than  that  system  which  the  tenor 
of  Christianity  prescribes — abhorrence  of  the  evil  and 
commiseration  of  him  who  commits  it.  The  union  of 
these  dispositions  will  be  likely  to  produce,  with  re- 
spect to  offenses  of  all  kinds,  that  conduct  which  most 
effectually  tends  to  discountenance  them,  while  it  as 
effectually  tends  to  reform  the  offenders.  These,  how- 
ever, are  not  the  dispositions  which  actuate  the  public 
in  measuring  their  reprobation  of  unchastity  in  women. 
Something  probably  might  rightly  be  deducted  from 
the  severity  with  which  their  offence  is  visited  :  much 

*  Hunter's  Memoirs. 


254  INFLUENCE   OF   INDIVIDUALS  UPON  [ES9AY    II. 

may  be  rightly  altered  in  the  motives  which  induce  this 
severity.  And  as  to  men,  much  should  be  added  to 
the  quantum  of  reprobation,  and  much  correction 
should  be  applied  to  the  principles  by  which  it  is  regu- 
lated. 

Fame.  — The  observations  which  were  offered  respect- 
ing contributing  to  the  passion  for  glory,  involve 
kindred  doctrines  respecting  contributions  generally  to 
individual  fame.  If  the  pretensions  of  those  with 
whose  applauses  the  popular  voice  is  filled,  were  ex- 
amined by  the  only  proper  test,  the  test  which  Chris- 
tianity allows,  it  would  be  found  that  multitudes  whom 
the  world  thus  honors  must  be  shorn  of  their  beams. 
Before  Bacon's  daylight  of  truth,  poets  and  statesmen 
and  philosophers  without  number  would  hide  their  di- 
minished heads.  The  mighty  indeed  would  be  fallen. 
Yet  it  is  for  the  acquisition  of  this  fame  that  multi- 
tudes toil.  It  is  their  motive  to  ac.tion  ;  and  they  pur- 
sue that  conduct  which  will  procure  fame  whether  it 
ought  to  procure  it  or  not.  The  inference  as  to  the 
duties  of  individuals  in  contributing  to  fame,  is  ob- 
vious. 

' '  The  profligacy  of  a  man  of  fashion  is  looked  upon 
with  much  less  contempt  and  aversion  than  that  of  a 
man  of  meaner  condition*"*  It  ought  to  be  looked 
upon  with  much  more.  But  men  of  fashion  are  not 
our  concern.  Our  business  is  with  men  of  talent  and 
genius,  with  the  eminent  and  the  great.  The  profli- 
gacy of  these,  too,  is  regarded  with  much  less  of  aver- 
sion than  that  of  less  gifted  men.  To  be  great, 
whether  intellectually  or  otherwise,  is  often  like  a  pass- 
port to  impunity  ;  and  men  talk  as  if  we  ought  to  speak 
leniently  of  the  faults  of  a  man  who  delights  us  by  his 
genius  or  his  talent.  This  precisely  is  the  man  whose 
faults  we  should  be  most  prompt  to  mark,  because  he 
*  Ad.  Smith  :  Theo.  Mor.  Sent. 


CHAP.    IX.]  FUBUC   NOTIONS  OF1  MORALITY.  255 

is  the  man  whose  faults  are  most  seducing  to  the  world. 
Intellectual  superiority  brings,  no  doubt,  its  congenial 
temptations.  L,et  these  affect  our  judgments  of  the 
man,  but  let  them  not  diminish  our  reprobation  of  his 
offences.  So  to  extenuate  the  individual  as  to  apologize 
for  his  faults,  is  to  inj  ure  the  cause  of  virtue  in  one  of 
its  most  vulnerable  parts.  ' '  Oh  !  that  I  could  see  in 
men  who  oppose  tyranny  in  the  state,  a  disdain  of  the 
tyranny  of  low  passions  in  themselves.  I  cannot  rec- 
oncile myself  to  the  idea  of  an  immoral  patriot,  or  to 
that  separation  of  private  from  public  virtue  which 
some  men  think  to  be  possible. '  **  Probably  it  is  possi- 
ble :  probably  there  may  be  such  a  thing  as  an  im- 
moral patriot  :  for  public  opinion  applauds  the  patriot- 
ism without  condemning  the  immorality.  If  men 
constantly  made  a  fit  deduction  from  their  praises  of 
public  virtue  on  account  of  its  association  with  private 
vice,  the  union  would  frequently  be  severed  ;  and  he 
who  hoped  for  celebrity  from  the  public  would  find  it 
needful  to  be  good  as  well  as  great.  He  who  applauds 
human  excellence  and  really  admires  it,  should  en- 
deavor to  make  its  examples  as  pure  and  perfect  as  he 
can.  He  should  hold  out  a  motive  to  consistency  of 
excellence,  by  evincing  that  nothing  else  can  obtain 
praise  unmingled  with  censure.  This  endeavor  should 
be  constant  and  uniform.  The  hearer  should  never  be 
allowed  to  suppose  that  in  appreciating  a  person's 
merits,  we  are  indifferent  to  his  faults.  It  has  been 
complained  of  one  of  our  principal  works  of  periodical 
literature,  that  amongst  its  many  and  ardent  praises  of 
Shakespeare,  it  has  almost  never  alluded  to  his  inde- 
cencies. The  silence  is  reprehensible  :  for  what  is  a 
reader  to  conclude  but  that  indecency  is  a  very  venial 
offence  ?  Under  such  circumstances,  not  to  be  with 
morality  is  to  be  against  it.  Silence  is  positive  mischief. 
*Dr.  Price  :  Revolution  Serm. 


256  INFLUENCE   OF  INDIVIDUALS  UPON         [KSSAY   II. 

People  talk  to  us  of  liberality,  and  of  allowances 
for  the  aberrations  of  genius,  and  for  the  temptations 
of  greatness.  It  is  well.  Let  the  allowances  be  made. 
— But  this  is  frequently  only  affectation  of  candor.  It 
is  not  that  we  are  lenient  to  failings,  but  that  we  are 
indifferent  to  vice.  It  is  not  even  enlightened  benevo- 
lence to  genius  or  greatness  itself.  The  faults  and 
vices  with  which  talented  men  are  chargeable  deduct 
greatly  from  their  own  happiness  ;  and  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  their  misdeeds  have  been  the  more  wil- 
lingly committed  from  the  consciousness  that  apolo- 
gists would  be  found  amongst  the  admiring  world.  It 
is  sufficient  to  make  that  world  knit  its  brows  in  anger, 
to  insist  upon  the  moral  demerits  of  a  Robert  Burns. 
Pathetic  and  voluble  extenuations  are  instantly  urged. 
There  are  extenuations  of  such  a  man's  vices,  and  they 
ought  to  be  regarded  :  but  no  extenuations  can  remove 
the  charge  of  voluntary  and  intentional  violations  of 
morality.  Let  us  not  hear  of  the  enthusiasm  of  poetry. 
Men  do  not  write  poetry  as  they  chatter  with  their 
neighbors  :  they  sit  down  to  a  deliberate  act ;  and  he 
who  in  his  verses  offends  against  morals,  intentionally 
and  deliberately  offends. 

After  all,  posterity  exercises  some  justice  in  its 
award.  When  the  first  glitter  and  the  first  applauses 
are  past — when  death  and  a  few  years  of  sobriety  have 
given  opportunity  to  the  public  mind  to  attend  to 
truth,  it  makes  a  deduction,  though  not  a  due  deduc- 
tion, for  the  shaded  portions  of  the  great  man's  char- 
acter. It  is  not  forgotten  that  Marlborough  was 
avaricious,  that  Bacon  was  mean  ;  and  there  are  great 
names  of  the  present  day  of  whom  it  will  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  they  had  deep  and  dark  shades  in  their  repu- 
tation. It  is  perhaps  wonderful  that  those  who  seek 
for  fame  are  so  indifferent  to  these  deductions  from  its 
amount.     Supposing    the   intellectual    pretensions  of 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF  MORALITY.  257 

Newton  and  Voltaire  were  equal,  how  different  is  their 
fame  !  How  many  and  how  great  qualifications  are 
employed  in  praising  the  one  !  How  few  and  how 
small  in  praising  the  other  !  Editions  of  the  works  of 
some  of  our  first  writers  are  advertised,  "  in  which  the 
exceptionable  passages  are  expunged."  How  foolish, 
how  uncalculating  even  as  to  celebrity,  to  have  in- 
serted these  passages  !  To  write  in  the  hope  of  fame, 
works  which  posterity  will  mutilate  before  they  place 
them  in  their  libraries  ! — Charles  James  Fox  said,  that  if, 
during  his  administration,  they  could  effect  the  abolition 
of  the  slave  trade,  it  ' '  would  entail  more  true  glory 
upon  them,  and  more  honor  upon  their  country,  than 
any  other  transaction  in  which  they  could  be  en- 
gaged."* If  this  be  true,  (and  who  will  dispute  it  ?) 
ministers  usually  provide  very  ill  for  their  reputation 
with  posterity.  How  anxiously  devoted  to  measures 
comparatively  insignificant  !  How  phlegmatic  respect- 
ing those  calls  of  humanity  and  public  principle,  a  re- 
gard of  which  will  alone  secure  the  permanent  honors 
of  the  world  !  It  may  safely  be  relied  upon,  that 
' '  much  more  unperishable  is  the  greatness  of  goodness 
than  the  greatness  of  power, "  f  or  the  greatness  of 
talent.  And  the  difference  will  progressively  increase. 
If,  as  there  is  reason  to  believe,  the  moral  condition  of 
mankind  will  improve,  their  estimate  of  the  good  por- 
tion of  a  great  man's  character  will  be  enhanced,  and 
their  reprobation  of  the  bad  will  become  more  intense 
— until  at  length  it  will  perhaps  be  found,  respecting 
some  of  those  who  now  receive  the  applauses  of  the 
world,  that  the  balance  of  public  opinion  is  against 
them,  and  that,  in  the  universal  estimate  of  merit  and 
demerit,  they  will  be  ranked  on  the  side  of  the  latter. 
These  motives  to  virtue  in  great  men  are  not  addressed 
to  the  Christian  :  he  has  higher  motives  and  better  :  but 
*  Fell's  Memoirs.  t  Sir  R.  K.  Porter. 


258  INFLUENCE  OE  INDIVIDUALS  UPON         [ESSAY   II. 

since  it  is  more  desirable  that  a  man  should  act  well 
from  imperfect  motives  than  that  he  should  act  ill,  we 
urge  him  to  regard  the  integrity  of  his  fame. 

The  Press. — It  is  manifest  that  if  the  obligations 
which  have  been  urged  apply  to  those  who  speak,  they 
apply  with  tenfold  responsibility  to  those  who  write. 
The  man  who,  in  talking  to  half  a  dozen  of  his  acquain- 
tance, contributes  to  confuse  or  pervert  their  moral 
notions,  is  accountable  for  the  mischief  which  he  may 
do  six  persons.  He  who  writes  a  book  containing 
similar  language,  is  answerable  for  a  so  much  greater 
amount  of  mischief  as  the  number  of  his  readers  may 
exceed  six,  and  as  the  influence  of  books  exceeds  that 
of  conversation,  by  the  evidence  of  greater  deliberation 
in  their  contents  and  by  the  greater  attention  which  is 
paid  by  the  reader.  It  is  not  a  light  matter,  even  in 
this  view,  to  write  a  book  for  the  public.  We  very 
insufficiently  consider  the  amount  of  the  obligations 
and  the  extent  of  the  responsibility  which  we  entail 
upon  ourselves."  Every  one  knows  the  power  of  the 
press  in  influencing  the  public  mind.  He  that  pub- 
lishes five  hundred  copies  of  a  jpook,  of  which  any  part 
is  likely  to  derange  the  moral  judgment  of  a  reader, 
contributes  materially  to  the  propagation  of  evil.  If 
each  of  his  books  is  read  by  four  persons,  he  endangers 
the  infliction  of  this  evil,  whatever  be  its  amount,  upon 
two  thousand  minds.  Who  shall  tell  the  sum  of  the 
mischief  ?  In  this  country  the  periodical  press  is  a 
powerful  engine  for  evil  or  for  good.  The  influence 
of  the  contents  of  one  number  of  a  newspaper  may  be 
small,  but  it  is  perpetually  recurring.  The  editor  of  a 
journal,  of  which  no  more  than  a  thousand  copies  are 
circulated  in  a  week,  and  each  of  which  is  read  by  half 
a  dozen  persons,  undertakes  in  a  year  a  part  of  the 
moral  guidance  of  thirty  thousand  individuals.  Of 
some  daily  papers  the  number  of  readers  is  so  great, 


CHAP.    IX.]  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF  MORALITY.  259 

that  in  the  course  of  twelve  months  they  may  influence 
the  opinions  and  the  conduct  of  six  or  eight  millions  of 
men.  To  say  nothing  therefore  of  editors  who  inten- 
tionally mislead  and  vitiate  the  public,  and  remember- 
ing with  what  carelessness  respecting  the  moral  ten- 
dency of  articles  a  newspaper  is  filled,  it  may  safely  be 
concluded  that  some  creditable  editors  do  harm  in  the 
world  to  an  extent,  in  comparison  with  which  robberies 
and  treasons  are  as  nothing. 

It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  the  sum  of  advantages 
which  would  result  if  the  periodical  press  not  only  ex- 
cluded that  which  does  harm,  but  preferred  that  which 
does  good.  Not  that  grave  moralities,  not,  especially, 
that  religious  disquisitions,  are  to  be  desired  ;  but  that 
every  reader  should  see  and  feel  that  the  editor  main- 
tained an  allegiance  to  virtue  and  to  truth.  There  is 
hardly  any  class  of  topics  in  which  this  allegiance  may 
not  be  manifested,  and  manifested  without  any  incon- 
gruous associations.  You  may  relate  the  common 
occurrences  of  the  day  in  such  a  manner  as  to  do  either 
good  or  evil.  The  trial  of  a  thief,  the  particulars  of  a 
conflagration,  the  death  of  a  statesman,  the  criticism 
of  a  debate,  and  a  hundred  other  matters,  may  be  re- 
corded so  as  to  exercise  a  moral  influence  over  the 
reader  for  the  better  or  the  worse.  That  the  influence 
is  frequently  for  the  worse  needs  no  proof  ;  and  it  is  so 
much  the  less  defensible  because  it  may  be  changed  to 
the  contrary  without  a  word,  directly,  respecting  morals 
or  religion. 

However,  newspapers  do  much  more  good  than 
harm,  especially  in  politics.  They  are  in  this  country 
one  of  the  most  vigorous  and  beneficial  instruments  of 
political  advantage.  They  effect  incalculable  benefit 
both  in  checking  the  statesman  who  would  abuse 
power,  and  in  so  influencing  the  public  opinion  as  to 
prepare  it  for,  and  therefore  to  render  necessary,  an 


26o  INFLUENCE   OF   INDIVIDUALS   UPON  [ESSAY    II. 

amelioration  of  political  and  civil  institutions.  The 
great  desideratum  is  enlargement  of  views  and  purity  of 
principle.  We  want  in  editorial  labors  less  of  parti- 
zanship,  less  of  petty  squabbles  about  the  worthless  dis- 
cussions of  the  day  :  we  want  more  of  the  philosophy 
of  politics,  more  of  that  grasping  intelligence  which 
can  send  a  reader's  reflections  from  facts  to  principles. 
Our  journals  are,  to  what  they  ought  to  be,  what  a 
chronicle  of  the  middle  ages  is  to  a  philosophical  his- 
tory. The  disjointed  fragments  of  political  intelligence 
ought  to  be  connected  by  a  sort  of  enlightened  run- 
ning commentary.  There  is  talent  enough  embarked 
in  some  of  these  ;  but  the  talent  too  commonly  expends 
itself  upon  subjects  and  in  speculations  which  are  of 
little  interest  beyond  the  present  week. 

And  here  we  are  reminded  of  that  miserable  direction 
to  public  opinion  which  is  given  in  historical  works.* 
I  do  not  speak  of  party  bias,  though  that  is  sufficiently 
mischievous  ;  but  of  the  irrational  selection  by  histor- 
ians of  comparatively  unimportant  things  to  fill  the 
greater  portion  of  their  pages.  People  exclaim  that 
the  history  of  Europe  is  little  more  than  a  history  of 
human  violence  and  wickedness.  But  they  confound 
history  with  that  portion  of  history  which  historians 
record.  That  portion  is  doubtless  written  almost  in 
blood — but  it  is  a  very  small,  and  in  truth  a  very  sub- 
ordinate portion.  The  intrigues  of  cabinets  ;  the  rise 
and  fall  of  ministers ;  wars  and  battles,  and  victories 
and  defeats  ;  the  plunder  of  provinces  ;  the  dismem- 
berment of  empires ;  these  are  the  things  which  fill 
the  pages  of  the  historian,  but  these  are  not  the  things 
which  compose  the  history  of  man.  He  that  would 
acquaint  himself  with  the  history  of  his  species,  must 

*  ' '  Next  to  the  guilt  of  those  who  commit  wicked  actions,  is 
that  of  the  historian  who  glosses  them  over  and  excuses  them. ' ' 
Southey:  Book  of  the  Church,  c.  8. 


CHAP.    IX.j  PUBLIC   NOTIONS  OF   MORALITY.  26l 

apply  to  other  and  to  calmer  scenes.  ' '  It  is  a  cruel 
mortification,  in  searching  for  what  is  instructive  in 
the  history  of  past  times,  to  find  that  the  exploits  of 
conquerors  who  have  desolated  the  earth  and  the  freaks 
of  tyrants  who  have  rendered  nations  unhappy,  are  re- 
corded with  minute  and  often  disgusting  accuracy, 
while  the  discovery  of  useful  arts  and  the  progress  of 
the  most  beneficial  branches  of  commerce,  are  passed 
over  in  silence,  and  suffered  to  sink  into  oblivion."* 
Even  a  more  cruel  mortification  than  this  is  to  find  re- 
corded almost  nothing  respecting  the  intellectual  and 
moral  history  of  man.  You  are  presented  with  five  or 
six  weighty  volumes  which  profess  to  be  a  history  of 
England  ;  and  after  reading  them  to  the  end  you  have 
hardly  found  any  thing  to  satisfy  that  interesting  ques- 
tion— how  has  my  country  been  enabled  to  advance 
from  barbarism  to  civilization  ;  to  come  forth  from 
darkness  into  light  ?  Yes,  by  applying  philosophy  to 
facts  yourself,  you  may  attain  some,  though  it  be  but 
an  imperfect,  reply.  But  the  historian  himself  should 
have  done  this.  The  facts  of  history,  simply  as  such, 
are  of  comparatively  little  concern.  He  is  the  true  his- 
torian of  man  who  regards  mere  facts  rather  as  the 
illiistratio7is  of  history  than  as  its  subject  matter.  As 
to  the  history  of  cabinets  and  courts,  of  intrigue  and 
oppression,  of  campaigns  and  generals,  we  can  almost 
spare  it  all.  It  is  of  wonderfully  little  consequence 
whether  they  are  remembered  or  not,  except  as  lessons 
of  instruction — except  as  proofs  of  the  evils  of  bad 
principles  and  bad  institutions.  For  any  other  pur- 
pose, Blenheim  !  we  can  spare  thee.  And  Eouis,  even 
Louis  "  le  grande!"  we  can  spare  thee.  And  thy  suc- 
cessor and  his  Pompadour  !  we  can  spare  ye  all. 

Much  power  is  in  the  hands  of  the  historian  if  he 
will  exert  it :    if  he  will  make  the  occurrences  of   the 
*  Robertson  :   Disq.  on  Anct.  Comm.  of  India. 


262  MORAE   EDUCATION.  [ESSAY    II. 

past  subservient  to  the  elucidations  of  the  principles  of 
human  nature — of  the  principles  of  political  truth — of 
the  rules  of  political  rectitude  ;  if  he  will  refuse  to 
make  men  ambitious  of  power  by  filling  his  pages  with 
the  feats  or  freaks  of  men  in  power  ;  if  he  will  give  no 
currency  to  the  vulgar  delusions  about  glory  : — if  he 
will  do  these  things,  and  such  as  these,  he  will  deserve 
well  of  his  country  and  of  man  ;  for  he  will  contribute 
to  that  rectification  of  public  opinion  which,  when  it  is 
complete  and  determinate,  will  be  the  most  powerful 
of  all  earthly  agents  in  ameliorating  the  social  condi- 
tion of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  X. 
MORAL  EDUCATION. 


Union  of  moral  principle  with  the  affections — Society — Morality 
of  the  Ancient  Classics — The  supply  of  motives  to  virtue — 
Conscience — Subjugation  of  the  will — Knowledge  of  our  own 
minds — Offices  of  public  worship. 

To  a  good  moral  education,  two  things  are  neces- 
sary :  That  the  young  should  receive  information  re- 
specting what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  ;  and,  That 
they  should  be  furnished  with  motives  to  adhere  to 
what  is  right.  We  should  communicate  moral  knowl- 
edge and  moral  dispositions. 

I.  In  the  endeavor  to  attain  these  ends,  there  is  one 
great  pervading  difficulty,  consisting  in  the  imperfec- 
tion and  impurity  of  the  actual  moral  condition  of 
mankind.  Without  referring  at  present  to  that  moral 
guidance  with  which  all  men,  however  circumstanced, 
are  furnished,*  it  is  evident  that  much  of  the  practical 

*  See  Essay  I.,  c.  vi. 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAL   EDUCATION.  263 

moral  education  which  an  individual  receives,  is  ac-. 
quired  by  habit,  and  from  the  actions,  opinions,  and 
general  example  of  those  around  him.  It  is  thus  that, 
to  a  great  extent,  he  acquires  his  moral  education.  He 
adopts  the  notions  of  others,  acquires  insensibly  a 
similar  set  of  principles,  and  forms  to  himself  a  similar 
scale  of  right  and  wrong.  It  is  manifest  that  the 
learner  in  such  a  school  will  often  be  taught  amiss. 
Yet  how  can  we  prevent  him  from  being  so  taught  ? 
or  what  system  of  moral  education  is  likely  to  avail  in 
opposition  to  the  contagion  of  example  and  the  in- 
fluence of  notions  insensibly,  yet  constantly  instilled  ? 
It  is  to  little  purpose  to  take  a  boy  every  morning  into 
a  closet,  and  there  teach  him  moral  and  religious 
truths  for  an  hour,  if  so  soon  as  the  hour  is  expired, 
he  is  left  for  the  remainder  of  the  day  in  circumstances 
in  which  these  truths  are  not  recommended  by  any  liv- 
ing examples. 

One  of  the  first  and  greatest  requisites,  therefore,  in 
moral  education,  is  a  situation  in  which  the  knowledge 
and  the  practice  of  morality  is  inculcated  by  the 
habitually  virtuous  conduct  of  others.  The  boy  who 
is  placed  in  such  a  situation  is  in  an  efficient  moral 
school,  though  he  may  never  hear  delivered  formal 
rules  of  conduct  :  so  that,  if  parents  should  ask  how 
they  may  best  give  their  child  a  moral  education,  I 
answer,  Be  virtuous  yourselves. 

The  young,  however,  are  unavoidably  subjected  to 
bad  example  as  to  good  :  many  who  may  see  consis- 
tent practical  lessons  of  virtue  in  their  parents'  parlors, 
must  see  much  that  is  contrary  elsewhere  ;  and  we 
must,  if  we  can,  so  rectify  the  moral  perceptions  and 
invigorate  the  moral  dispositions,  that  the  mind  shall 
effectually  resist  the  insinuation  of  evil. 

Religion  is  the  basis  of  morality.  He  that  would 
impart  moral  knowledge  must  begin  by  imparting  a 


264  MORAE   EDUCATION.  [ESSAY    II. 

knowledge  of  God.  We  are  not  advocates  of  formal 
instruction — of  lesson  learning — in  moral  any  more 
than  in  intellectual  education.  Not  that  we  affirm  it  is 
undesirable  to  make  a  young  person  commit  to  memory 
maxims  of  religious  truth  and  moral  duty.  These 
things  may  be  right  but  they  are  not  the  really  effi- 
cient means  of  forming  the  moral  character  of  the 
young.  These  maxims  should  recommend  themselves 
to  the  judgment  and  affections,  and  this  can  hardly  be 
hoped  whilst  they  are  presented  only  in  a  didactic  and 
insulated  form  to  the  mind.  It  is  one  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  times,  that  there  is  a  prodigious  increase  of 
books  that  are  calculated  to  benefit  whilst  they  delight 
the  young.  These  are  effective  instruments  in  teaching 
morality.  A  simple  narrative,  {of  facts,  if  it  be  pos- 
sible,) in  which  integrity  of  principle  and  purity  of 
conduct  are  recommended  to  the  affections  as  well  as 
to  the  judgment — without  affectation,  or  improbabil- 
ities, or  factitious  sentiment,  is  likely  to  effect  substan- 
tial good.  And  if  these  associations  are  judiciously 
renewed,  the  good  is  likely  to  be  permanent  as  well  as 
substantial.  It  is  not  a  light  task  to  write  such  books, 
nor  to  select  them.  Authors  color  their  pictures  too 
highly.  They  must  indeed  interest  the  young,  or  they 
will  not  be  read  with  pleasure  :  but  the  anxiety  to  give 
interest  is  too  great,  and  the  effects  may  be  expected  to 
diminish  as  the  narrative  recedes  from  congeniality  to 
the  actual  condition  of  mankind. 

A  judicious  parent  will  often  find  that  the  moral  cul- 
ture of  his  child  may  be  promoted  without  seeming  to 
have  the  object  in  view.  There  are  many  opportunities 
which  present  themselves  for  associating  virtue  with 
his  affections — for  throwing  in  amongst  the  accumulat- 
ing mass  of  mental  habits,  principles  of  rectitude  which 
shall  pervade  and  meliorate  the  whole. 

As    the    mind   acquires  an    increased   capacity    of 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAI,  EDUCATION.  265 

judging,  I  would  offer  to  the  young  person  a  sound  exhi- 
bition, if  such  can  be  found,  of  the  principles  of 
morality.  He  should  know,  with  as  great  distinctness 
as  possible,  not  only  his  duty,  but  the  reasons  of  it.  It 
has  very  unfortunately  happened  that  those  who  have 
professed  to  deliver  the  principles  of  morality,  have 
commonly  intermingled  error  with  truth,  or  have  set 
out  with  propositions  fundamentally  unsound.  These 
books  effect,  it  is  probable,  more  injury  than  benefit. 
Their  truths,  for  they  contain  truths,  are  frequently 
deduced  from  fallacious  premises — from  premises  from 
which  it  is  equally  easy  to  deduce  errors.  The  falla- 
cies of  the  moral  philosophy  of  Paley  are  now  in  part 
detected  by  the  public  :  there  was  a  time  when  his 
opinions  were  regarded  as  more  nearly  oracular  than 
now  ;  and  at  that  time  and  up  to  the  present  time,  the 
book  has  effectually  confused  the  moral  notions  of 
multitudes  of  readers.  If  the  reader  thinks  that  the 
principles  which  have  been  proposed  in  the  present 
essays  are  just,  he  might  derive  some  assistance  from 
them  in  conducting  the  moral  education  of  his  elder 
children. 

There  is  negative  as  well  as  positive  education — some 
things  to  avoid  as  well  as  some  to  do.  Of  the  things 
which  are  to  be  avoided,  the  most  obvious  is  unfit 
society  for  the  young.  If  a  boy  mixes  without  re- 
straint in  whatever  society  he  pleases,  his  education 
will  in  general  be  practically  bad  ;  because  the  world  in 
general  in  bad :  its  moral  condition  is  below  the 
medium  between  perfect  purity  and  utter  depravation. 
Nevertheless,  he  must  at  some  period  mix  in  society 
with  almost  all  sorts  of  men,  and  therefore  he  must 
be  prepared  for  it.  Very  young  children  should  be  ex- 
cluded if  possible  from  all  unfit  association,  because 
they  acquire  habits  before  they  possess  a  sufficiency  of 
counteracting  principle.     But  if  a  parent  has,  within 


266  MORAI,   EDUCATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

his  own  house,  sufficiently  endeavored  to  confirm  and 
invigorate  the  moral  character  of  his  child,  it  were 
worse  than  fruitless  to  endeavor  to  retaim  him  in  the 
seclusion  of  a  monk.  He  should  feel  the  necessity  and 
acquire  the  power  of  resisting  temptation,  by  being  sub- 
jected, gradually  subjected,  to  that  temptation  which 
miist  one  day  be  presented  to  him.  In  the  endlessly 
diversified  circumstances  of  families,  no  suggestion  of 
prudence  will  be  applicable  to  all ;  but  if  a  parent  is 
conscious  that  the  moral  tendency  of  his  domestic  as- 
sociations is  good,  it  will  probably  be  wise  to  send  bis 
children  to  day-schools  rather  than  to  send  them 
wholly  from  his  family.  Schools,  as  moral  instru- 
ments, contain  much  both  of  good  and  evil :  perhaps 
no  means  will  be  more  effectual  in  securing  much  of 
the  good  and  avoiding  much  of  the  evil,  than  that  of 
allowing  his  children  to  spend  their  evenings  and  early 
mornings  at  home. 

In  ruminating  upon  moral  education,  we  cannot,  at 
least  in  this  age  of  reading,  disregard  the  influence  of 
books.  That  a  young  person  should  not  read  every 
book  is  plain.  No  discrimination  can  be  attempted 
here  ;  but  it  may  be  observed  that  the  best  species  of 
discrimination  is  that  which  is  supplied  by  a  rectified  con- 
dition of  the  mind  itself.  The  best  species  of  prohibition 
is  not  that  which  a  parent  pronounces,  but  that  which 
is  pronounced  by  purified  tastes  and  inclinations  in  the 
mind  of  the  young.  Not  that  the  parent  or  tutor  can 
expect  that  all  or  many  of  his  children  will  adequately 
make  this  judicious  discrimination  ;  but  if  he  cannot  do 
every  thing  he  can  do  much.  There  are  many  persons 
whom  a  contemptible  or  vicious  book  disgusts,  not- 
withstanding the  fascinations  which  it  may  contain. 
This  disgust  is  the  result  of  education  in  a  large  sense  ; 
and  some  portion  of  this  disgust  and  of  the  discrimina- 
tion which  results  from  it,  may  be  induced  into  the 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAI,  EDUCATION.  267 

mind  of  a  boy  by  having  made  him  familiar  with 
superior  productions.  He  who  is  accustomed  to  good 
society,  feels  little  temptation  to  join  in  the  vocifera- 
ations  of  an  alehouse. 

And  here  it  appears  necessary  to  advert  to  the  moral 
tendency  of  studying,  without  selection,  the  ancient 
classics.  The  mode  in  which  the  writings  of  the  Greek 
and  L,atin  authors  operate,  is  not  an  ordinary  mode. 
We  do  not  approach  them  as  we  approach  ordinary 
books,  but  with  a  sort  of  habitual  admiration,  which 
makes  their  influence,  whatever  be  its  nature,  pecu- 
liarly strong.  That  admiration  would  be  powerful 
alike  for  good  or  for  evil.  Whether  the  tendency  be 
good  or  evil,  the  admiration  will  make  it  great. 

Now,  previous  to  enquiring  what  the  positive  ill 
tendency  of  these  writings  is — what  is  not  their  tend- 
ency? They  are  pagan  books  for  Christian  children. 
They  neither  inculcate  Christianity,  nor  Christian  dis- 
positions, nor  the  love  of  Christianity.  But  their  tend- 
ency is  not  negative  merely.  They  do  inculcate  that 
which  is  adverse  to  Christianity  and  to  Christian 
dispositions.  They  set  up,  as  exalted  virtues,  that 
which  our  own  religion  never  countenanced,  if  it  has 
not  specifically  condemned.  They  censure  as  faults 
dispositions  which  our  own  religion  enjoins,  or  dispo- 
sitions so  similar  that  the  young  will  not  discriminate 
between  them.  If  we  enthusiastically  admire  these 
works,  who  will  pretend  that  we  shall  not  admire  the 
moral  qualities  which  they  applaud  ?  Who  will  pretend 
that  the  mind  of  a  young  person  accurately  adjusts  his 
admiration  to  those  subjects  only  which  Christianity  ap- 
proves? No  :  we  admire  them  as  a  whole  ;  not  perhaps 
every  sentence  or  every  sentiment,  but  we  admire  their 
general  spirit  and  character.  In  a  word,  we  admire 
that  which  our  own  religion  teaches  us  not  to  imitate. 
And  what  makes  the  effect  the  more  intense  is,  that  we 


268  M0RAI,  EDUCATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

do  this  at  the  period  of  life  when  we  are  every  day 
acquiring  our  moral  notions.  We  mingle  them  up  with 
our  early  associations  respecting  right  and  wrong — 
with  associations  which  commonly  extend  their  influ- 
ence over  the  remainder  of  life.* 

A  very  able  essay,  which  obtained  the  Norrisian 
Medal  at  Cambridge  for  1825,  forcibly  illustrates  these 
propositions  ;  and  the  illustration  is  so  much  the  more 
valuable,  because  it  appears  to  have  been  undesigned. 
The  title  is,  ' '  No  valid  argument  can  be  drawn  from 
the  incredulity  of  the  heathen  philosophers  against  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion. "f  The  object  of  the 
work  is  to  show,  by  a  reference  to  their  writings,  that 
the  general  system  of  their  opinions,  feelings,  preju- 
dices, principles,  and  conduct,  was  utterly  incongruous 
with  Christianity  ;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  these 
principles,  &c,  they  actually  did  reject  the  religion. 
This  is  shown  with  great  clearness  of  evidence ;  it  is 
shown  that  a  class  of  men,  who  thought  and  wrote  as 
these  philosophers  thought  and  wrote,  would  be  ex- 
tremely indisposed  to  adopt  the  religion  and  morality 
which  Christ  had  introduced.  Now,  this  appears  to 
me  to  be  conclusive  of  the  question  as  to  the  present 
tendency  of  their  writings.  If  the  principles  and  preju- 
dices of  these  persons  indisposed  them  to  the  accept- 
ance of  Christianity,  those  prejudices  and  principles 
will  indispose  the  man  who  admires  and  imbibes  them 
in  the  present  day.  Not  that  they  will  now  produce 
the  effect  in  the  same  degree.  We  are  now  surrounded 
with  many  other  media  by  which  opinions  and  princi- 
ples are  induced,  and  these  are  frequently  "influenced 
by  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  The  study  and  the  admi- 
ration of  these  writings  may  not  therefore  be  expected 

*"All  education  which  inculcates  Christian  opinions  with 
pagan  tastes,  awakens  conscience  but  to  tamper  with  it." 
Schimmelpenninck  :  Biblical  Fragments. 

t  By  James  Amiraux  Jeremie. 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAt  EDUCATION.  269 

to  make  men  absolutely  reject  Christianity,  but  to  in- 
dispose them,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  for  the  hearty 
acceptance  of  Christian  principles  as  their  rules  of  con- 
duct. 

Propositions  have  been  made  to  supply  young  persons 
with  selected  ancient  authors,  or  perhaps  with  editions 
in  which  exceptionable  passages  are  expunged.  I  do 
not  think  that  this  will  greatly  avail.  It  is  not,  I 
think,  the  broad  indecencies  of  Ovid,  nor  any  other  in- 
sulated class  of  sentiments  or  descriptions,  that  effects 
the  great  mischief  ;  it  is  the  pervading  spirit  and  tenor 
of  the  whole — a  spirit  and  tenor  from  which  Christian- 
ity is  not  only  excluded,  but  which  is  actually  and 
greatly  adverse  to  Christianity.  There  is  indeed  one 
considerable  benefit  that  is  likely  to  result  from  such  a 
selection,  and  from  expunging  particular  passages. 
Boys  in  ordinary  schools  do  not  learn  enough  of  the 
classics  to  acquire  much  of  their  general  moral  spirit, 
but  they  acquire  enough  to  be  influenced,  and  inju- 
riously influenced,  by  being  familiar  with  licentious 
language  ;  and,  at  any  rate,  he  essentially  subserves 
the  interests  of  morality,  who  diminishes  the  power  of 
opposing  influences  though  he  cannot  wholly  destroy 
it. 

Finally,  the  mode  in  which  intellectual  education, 
generally,  is  acquired,  may  be  made  either  an  auxiliary 
of  moral  education  or  the  contrary.  A  young  person 
may  store  his  mind  with  literature  and  science,  and 
together,  wTith  the  acquisition,  either  corrupt  his  prin- 
ciples, or  amend  and  invigorate  them.  The  wyorld  is 
so  abundantly  supplied  with  the  means  of  knowledge — 
there  are  so  many  paths  to  the  desired  temple,  that  we 
may  choose  our  own  and  yet  arrive  at  it.  He  that 
thinks  he  cannot  possess  sufficient  knowledge  without 
plucking  fruit  of  unhallowed  trees,  surely  does  not 
know  how  boundless  is  the  variety  and  number  of  those 


27O  MORAt   EDUCATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

which  bear  wholesome  fruit.  He  cannot  indeed  know 
everything  without  studying  the  bad  ;  which,  however, 
is  no  more  to  be  recommended  in  literature  than  in  life. 
A  man  cannot  know  all  the  varieties  of  human  society 
without  taking  up  his  abode  with  felons  and  cannibals. 

II.  But,  in  reality,  the  second  division  of  moral  edu- 
cation is  the  more  important  of  the  two — the  supply  of 
motives  to  adhere  to  what  is  right.  Our  great  deficiency 
is  not  in  knowledge  but  in  obedience.  Of  the  offences 
which  an  individual  commits  against  the  moral  law,  the 
great  majority  are  committed  in  the  consciousness that  he 
is  doing  wrong.  Moral  education  therefore  should  be 
directed,  not  so  much  to  informing  the  young  what 
they  ought  to  do,  as  to  inducing  those  moral  disposi- 
tions and  principles  which  will  make  them  adhere  to 
what  they  know  to  be  right. 

The  human  mind,  of  itself,  is  in  a  state  something 
like  that  of  men  in  a  state  of  nature,  where  separate 
and  conflicting  desires  and  motives  are  not  restrained 
by  any  acknowledged  head.  Government,  as  it  is'neces- 
sary  to  society,  is  necessary  in  the  individual  mind.  To 
the  internal  community  of  the  heart  the  great  question 
is,  Who  shall  be  the  legislator  ?  Who  shall  regulate 
and  restrain  the  passions  and  affections  ?  Who  shall 
command  and  direct  the  conduct  ? — To  these  questions 
the  breast  of  every  man  supplies  him  with  an  answer. 
He  knows,  because  he  feels  that  there  is  a  rightful 
legislator  in  his  own  heart :  he  knows,  because  he 
feels,  that  he  ought  to  obey  it. 

By  whatever  designation  the  reader  may  think  it  fit 
to  indicate  this  legislator,  whether  he  calls  it  the  law 
written  in  the  heart,  or  moral  sense,  or  moral  instinct, 
or  conscience,  we  arrive  at  one  practical  truth  at  last ; 
that  to  the  moral  legislation  which  does  actually  sub- 
sist in  the  human  mind,  it  is  right  that  the  individual 
should  conform  his  conduct. 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAL   EDUCATION.  27 1 

The  great  point  then  is,  to  induce  him  to  do  this — to 
induce  him,  when  inclination  and  this  law  are  at 
variance,  to  sacrifice  the  inclination  to  the  law ;  and 
for  this  purpose  it  appears  proper,  first  to  impress  him 
with  a  high,  that  is,  with  an  accurate  estimate  of  the 
authority  of  the  law  itself.  We  have  seen  that  this 
law  embraces  an  actual  expression  of  the  will  of  God  ; 
and  we  have  seen  that,  even  although  the  conscience 
may  not  always  be  adequately  enlightened,  it  never- 
theless constitutes  to  the  individual  an  authoritative 
law.  It  is  to  the  conscientious  internal  apprehension  of 
rectitude  that  we  should  conform  our  conduct.  Such 
appears  to  be  the  will  of  God. 

It  should  therefore  be  especially  inculcated,  that  the 
dictate  of  conscience  is  never  to  be  sacrificed ;  that 
whatever  may  be  the  consequences  of  conforming  to  it, 
they  are  to  be  ventured.  Obedience  is  to  be  uncon- 
ditional— no  questions  about  the  utility  of  the  law—- no 
computations  of  the  consequences  of  obedience — no 
presuming  upon  the  lenity  of  the  Divine  government. 
' '  It  is  important  so  to  regulate  the  understanding  and 
imagination  of  the  young,  that  they  may  be  prepared 
to  obey,  even  when  they  do  not  see  the  reasons  of  the 
commands  of  God."  "We  should  certainly  endeavor 
where  we  can,  to  show  them  the  reasons  of  the  Divine 
commands,  and  this  more  and  more  as  their  under- 
standings gain  strength  ;  but  let  it  be  obvious  to  them 
that  we  do  ourselves  consider  it  as  quite  sufficient  if  God 
has  commanded  us  to  do  or  to  avoid  anything."* 

Obedience  to  this  internal  legislator  is  not,  like 
obedience  to  civil  government,  enforced.  The  law  is 
promulgated,  but  the  passions  and  inclinations  can  re- 
fuse obedience  if  they  will.  Penalties  and  rewards  are 
indeed  annexed  ;  but  he  who  braves  the  penalty,  and 
disregards  the  reward,  may  continue  to  violate  the  law. 

*  Carpenter  :  Principles  of  Education. 


272  MORAL  EDUCATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

Obedience  therefore  must  be  voluntary,  and  hence  the 
paramount  importance,  in  moral  education,  of  habit- 
ually subjecting  the  will.  "Parents,"  says  Hartley, 
! '  should  labor,  from  the  earliest  dawnings  of  under- 
standing and  desire,  to  check  the  growing  obstinacy  of 
the  will,  curb  all  sallies  of  •  passion,  impress  the  deep- 
est, most  amiable,  reverential,  and  awful  impressions 
of  God,  a  future  state,  and  all  sacred  things." — "  Re- 
ligious persons  in  all  periods,  who  have  possessed  the 
light  of  revelation,  have  in  a  particular  manner  been 
sensible  that  the  habit  of  self-control  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  moral  worth."*  There  is  nothing  mean  or 
mean-spirited  in  this.  It  is  magnanimous  in  philoso- 
phy as  it  is  right  in  morals.  It  is  the  subjugation  of 
the  lower  qualities  of  our  nature  to  wisdom  and  to 
goodness. 

The  subjugation  of  the  will  to  the  dictates  of  a 
higher  law,  must  be  endeavored,  if  we  would  succeed, 
almost  in  infancy  and  in  very  little  things  ;  from  the 
earliest  dawnings,  as  Hartley  says,  of  understanding 
and  desire.  Children  must  first  obey  their  parents, 
and  those  who  have  the  care  of  them.  The  habit  of 
sacrificing  the  will  to  another  judgment  being  thus 
acquired,  the  mind  is  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  will  to 
the  judgment  pronounced  within  itself.  Show,  in  every 
practicable  case,  why  you  cross  the  inclinations  of  a 
child.  I^et  obedience  be  as  little  blind  as  it  may  be. 
It  is  a  great  failing  of  some  parents  that  they  will  not 
descend  from  the  imperative  mood,  and  that  they  seem 
to  think  it  a  derogation  from  their  authority  to  place 
their  orders  upon  any  other  foundation  than  their  wills. 
But  if  the  child  sees — and  children  are  wonderfully 
quick-sighted  in  such  things — if  the  child  sees  that  the 
will  is  that  which  governs  his  parent,  how  shall  he 
efficiently  learn  that  the  will  should  not  govern  himself  ? 

*  Carpenter  :  Principles  of  Education. 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAL  EDUCATION.  273 

The  internal  law  carries  with  it  the  voucher  of  its 
own  reasonableness.  A  person  does  not  need  to  be  told 
that  it  is  proper  and  right  to  obey  that  law.  The  per- 
ception of  this  rectitude  and  propriety  is  coincident  with 
the  dictates  themselves.  Let  the  parent,  then,  very 
frequently  refer  his  son  and  his  daughter  to  their  own 
minds ;  let  him  teach  them  to  seek  for  instruction 
there.  There  are  dangers  on  every  hand,  and  dangers 
even  here.  The  parent  must  refer  them,  if  it  be  possi- 
ble, not  merely  to  conscience  but  to  enlightened 
conscience.  He  must  unite  the  two  branches  of 
moral  education,  and  communicate  the  knowledge 
whilst  he  endeavors  to  induce  the  practice  of 
morality.  Without  this,  his  children  may  obey 
their  consciences,  and  yet  be  in  error,  and  perhaps  in 
fanaticism.  With  it,  he  may  hope  that  their  conduct 
will  be  both  conscientious,  and  pure,  and  right. 
Nevertheless,  an  habitual  reference  to  the  internal  law 
is  the  great,  the  primary  concern  ;  for  the  great  major- 
ity of  a  man's  moral  perceptions  are  accordant  with 
truth. 

There  is  one  consequence  attendant  upon  this  habit- 
ual reference  to  the  internal  law,  which  is  highly  bene- 
ficial to  the  moral  character.  It  leads  us  to  fulfil  the 
wise  instruction  of  antiquity,  Know  thyself.  It  makes 
us  look  within  ourselves  :  it  brings  us  acquainted  with 
the  little  and  busy  world  that  is  within  us,  with  its 
many  inhabitants  and  their  dispositions  and  with  their 
tendencies  to  evil  or  to  good.  This  is  valuable  know- 
ledge ;  and  knowledge  for  want  of  which,  it  may  be 
feared,  the  virtue  of  many  has  been  wrecked  in  the 
hour  of  tempest.  A  man's  enemies  are  those  of  his 
own  household  ;  and  if  he  does  not  know  their  insidious- 
ness  and  their  strength,  if  he  does  not  know  upon  what 
to  depend  for  assistance,  nor  where  is  the  probable 
point  of  attack,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  will  efficiently 


274  MORAL  EDUCATION.  [  ESSAY   II. 

resist.  Such  a  man  is  in  the  situation  of  the  governor 
of  an  unprepared  and  surprised  city.  He  knows  not  to 
whom  to  apply  for  effectual  help,  and  finds  perhaps 
that  those  whom  he  has  loved  and  trusted  are  the  first 
to  desert  or  betray  him.  He  feebly  resists,  soon  capitu- 
lates, and  at  last  scarcely  knows  why  he  did  not  make 
a  successful  defence. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that,  in  the  moral  education 
which  commonly  obtains,  whether  formal  or  incidental, 
there  is  little  that  is  calculated  to  produce  this  acquaint- 
ance with  our  own  minds  ;  little  that  refers  us  to  our- 
selves, and  much,  very  much,  that  calls  and  sends  us 
away.  Of  many  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  they 
receive  almost  no  moral  culture.  The  plant  of  virtue 
is  suffered  to  grow  as  a  tree  grows  in  a  forest,  and  takes 
its  chance  of  storm  or  sunshine.  This,  which  is  good 
for  oaks  and  pines,  is  not  good  for  man.  The  general 
atmosphere  around  him  is  infected,  and  the  juices  of 
the  moral  plant  are  often  themselves  unhealthy. 

In  the  nursery,  formularies  and  creeds  are  taught  ; 
but  this  does  not  refer  the  child  to  its  own  mind.  In- 
deed, unless  a  wakeful  solicitude  is  maintained  by  those 
who  teach,  the  tendency  is  the  reverse.  The  mind  is 
kept  from  habits  of  introversion,  even  in  the  offices  of 
religion,  by  practically  directing  its  attention  to  the 
tongue.  "  Many,  it  is  to  be  feared,  imagine  that  they 
are  giving  their  children  religious  principles  when  they 
are  only  teaching  them  religious  truths."  You 
cannot  impart  moral  education  as  you  teach  a  child  to 
spell. 

From  the  nursery  a  boy  is  sent  to  school.  He  spends 
six  or  eight  hours  of  the  day  in  the  school-room,  and 
the  remainder  is  employed  in  the  sports  of  boyhood. 
Once,  or  it  may  be  twice,  in  the  day  he  repeats  a  form 
of  prayer,  and  on  one  day  in  the  week  he  goes  to 
church.     There  is  very  little  in  all  this  to  make  him 


CHAP.    X.]  MORAL   EDUCATION.  275 

acquainted  with  the  internal  community  ;  and  habit,  if 
nothing  else,  calls  his  reflections  away. 

From  school  or  from  college  the  business  of  life  is 
begun.  It  can  require  no  argument  to  show,  that  the 
ordinary  pursuits  of  life  have  little  tendency  to  direct  a 
man's  meditations  to  the  moral  condition  of  his  own 
mind,  or  that  they  have  much  tendency  to  employ 
them  upon  other  and  very  different  things. 

Nay,  even  the  offices  of  public  devotion  have  al- 
most a  tendency  to  keep  the  mind  without  itself. 
What  if  we  say  that  the  self-contemplation  which  even 
natural  religion  is  likely  to  produce,  is  obstructed  by 
the  forms  of  Christian  worship  ?  ' '  The  transitions 
from  one  office  of  devotion  to  another,  are  contrived, 
like  scenes  in  the  drama,  to  supply  the  mind  with  a 
succession  of  diversified  engagements."*  This  supply 
of  diversified  engagements,  whatever  may  be  its  value 
in  other  respects,  has  evidently  the  tendency  of  which 
we  speak.  It  is  not  designed  to  supply,  and  it  does 
not  supply,  the  opportunity  for  calmness  of  recollec- 
tion. A  man  must  abstract  himself  from  the  external 
service  if  he  would  investigate  the  character  and  dis- 
positions of  the  inmates  of  his  own  breast.  Even  the 
architecture  and  decorations  of  "churches"  come  in  aid 
of  the  general  tendency.  They  make  the  eye  an  auxiliary 
of  the  ear,  and  both  keep  the  mind  at  a  distance  from 
those  concerns  which  are  peculiarly  its  own  ;  from  con- 
templating its  own  weaknesses  and  wants  ;  and  from 
applying  to  God  for  that  peculiar  help,  which  perhaps 
itself  only  needs,  and  which  God  only  can  impart.  So 
little  are  the  course  of  education  and  the  subsequent 
engagements  of  life  calculated  to  foster  this  great 
auxiliary  of  moral  character.  It  is  difficult,  in  the 
wide  world,  to  foster  it  as  much  as  is  needful.  Noth- 
ing but  wakeful  solicitude  on  the  part  of  the  parent 
*  Paley,  p.  3.  b.  5,  c.  5. 


276  MORAL   EDUCATION.  [ESSAY   II. 

can  be  expected  sufficiently  to  direct  the  mind  within ; 
whilst  the  general  tendency  of  our  associations  and 
habits  is  to  keep  it  without.  L,et  him,  however,  do 
what  he  can.  The  habitual  reference  to  the  dictates 
of  conscience  may  be  promoted  in  the  very  young 
mind.  This  habit,  like  others,  becomes  strong  by  ex- 
ercise. He  that  is  faithful  in  little  things  is  intrusted 
with  more  ;  and  this  is  true  in  respect  of  knowledge  as 
in  respect  of  other  departments  of  the  Christian  life. 
Fidelity  of  obedience  is  commonly  succeeded  by  in- 
crease of  light ;  and  every  act  of  obedience  and  every 
addition  to  knowledge  furnishes  new  and  still  stronger 
inducements  to  persevere  in  the  same  course.  Ac- 
quaintance with  ourselves  is  the  inseparable  attendant 
of  this  course.  We  know  the  character  and  dispositions 
of  our  own  inmates  by  frequent  association  with  them  : 
and  if  this  fidelity  to  the  internal  law,  and  consequent 
knowledge  of  the  internal  world,  be  acquired  in  early 
life,  the  parent  may  reasonably  hope  that  it  will  never 
wholly  lose  its  efficiency  amidst  the  bustle  and  anxieties 
of  the  world. 

Undoubtedly,  this  most  efficient  security  of  moral 
character  is  not  likely  fully  to  operate  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  present  state  of  society  and  of  its  in- 
stitutions. It  is  I  believe  true,  that  the  practice  of 
morality  is  most  complete  amongst  those  persons  who 
peculiarly  recommend  a  reference  to  the  internal  law, 
and  whose  institutions,  religious  and  social,  are  con- 
gruous with  the  habit  of  this  reference.  Their  history 
exhibits  a  more  unshaken  adherence  to  that  which  they 
conceived  to  be  right — fewer  sacrifices  of  conscience  to 
interest  or  the  dread  of  suffering — less  of  trimming  be- 
tween conflicting  motives — more,  in  a  word,  of  adher- 
ence to  rectitude  without  regard  to  consequences.  We 
have  seen  that  such  persons  are  likely  to  form  accurate 
views  of  rectitude  ;   but  whether  they  be  accurate  or 


CHAP.    XI.]  EDUCATION   OF  THE  PEOPLE.  277 

not,  does  not  affect  the  value  of  their  moral  edu- 
cation as  securing  fidelity  to  the  degree  of  knowledge 
which  they  possess.  It  is  of  more  consequence  to  ad- 
here steadily  to  conscience  though  it  may  not  be  per- 
fectly enlightened,  than  to  possess  perfect  knowledge 
without  consistency  of  obedience.  But  in  reality  they 
who  obey  most,  know  most ;  and  we  say  that  the 
general  testimony  of  experience  is,  that  those  persons 
exhibit  the  most  unyielding  fidelity  to  the  moral  law 
whose  moral  education  has  peculiarly  directed  them  to 
the  law  written  in  the  heart. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 

Advantages  of  extended  education — Infant  schools — Habits  of 
enquiry. 

Whether  the  education  of  those  who  are  not  able 
to  pay  for  educating  themselves  ought  to  be  a  private 
or  a  national  charge,  it  is  not  our  present  business  to 
discuss.  It  is  in  this  country,  at  least,  left  to  the  vol- 
untary benevolence  of  individuals,  and  this  considera- 
tion may  apologize  for  a  brief  reference  to  it  here. 

It  is  not  long  since  it  was  a  question  whether  the 
poor  should  be  educated  or  not.  That  time  is  past, 
and  it  may  be  hoped  the  time  will  soon  be  passed  when 
it  shall  be  a  question,  To  what  extent  ? — that  the  time 
will  soon  arrive  when  it  will  be  agreed  that  no  limit 
needs  to  be  assigned  to  the  education  of  the  poor,  but 
that  which  is  assigned  by  their  own  necessities,  or 
which  ought  to  be  assigned  to  the  education  of  all  men. 
There  appears  no  more  reason  for  excluding  a  poor 


278  EDUCATION  OF  THE   PEOPLE.  [ESSAY    II. 

man  from  the  fields  of  knowledge,  than  for  preventing 
him  from  using  his  eyes.  The  mental  and  the  visual 
powers  were  alike  given  to  be  employed.  A  man 
should,  indeed,  "  shut  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil"  but 
whatever  reason  there  is  for  letting  him  see  all  that  is 
beautiful,  and  excellent,  and  innocent  in  nature  and  in 
art,  there  is  the  same  for  enabling  his  mind  to  expati- 
ate in  the  fields  of  knowledge. 

The  objections  which  are  urged  against  this  extended 
education,  are  of  the  same  kind  as  those  which  were 
urged  against  any  education.  They  insist  upon  the 
probability  of  abuse.  It  was  said,  They  who  can  write 
may  forge  ;  they  who  can  read  may  read  what  is  per- 
nicious. The  answer  was,  or  it  might  have  been — 
They  who  can  hear,  may  hear  profaneness  and  learn 
it ;  they  who  can  see,  may  see  bad  examples  and  follow 
them  : — but  are  we  therefore  to  stop  our  ears  and  put 
out  our  eyes  ? — It  is  now  said,  that  if  you  give  extended 
education  to  the  poor,  you  will  elevate  them  above  their 
stations  ;  that  a  critic  would  not  drive  a  wheelbarrow, 
and  that  a  philosopher  would  not  shoe  horses,  or  weave 
cloth.  But  these  consequences  are  without  the  limits 
of  possibility  ;  because  the  question  for  a  poor  man  is, 
whether  he  shall  perform  such  offices  or  starve  :  and 
surely  it  will  not  be  pretended  that  hungry  men  would 
rather  criticise  than  eat.  Science  and  literature  would 
not  solicit  a  poor  man  from  his  labor  more  irresistibly 
than  ease  and  pleasure  do  now  ;  yet  in  spite  of  these 
solicitations  what  is  the  fact  ?  That  the  poor  man  works 
for  his  bread.     This  is  the  inevitable  result. 

It  is  not  the  positive  but  the  relative  amount  of 
knowledge  that  elevates  a  man  above  his  station  in 
society.  It  is  not  because  he  knows  much,  but  because 
he  knows  more  than  his  fellows.  Educate  all,  and 
none  will  fancy  that  he  is  superior  to  his  neighbors. 
Besides,    we  assign   to  the   possession  of  knowledge, 


CHAP.    XI.]  EDUCATION   OE  THE   PEOPEE.  279 

effects  which  are  produced  rather  by  habits  of  life. 
Ease  and  comparative  leisure  are  commonly  attendant 
upon  extensive  knowledge,  and  leisure  and  ease  dis- 
qualify men  for  the  laborious  occupations  much  more 
than  the  knowledge  itself. 

There  are  some  collateral  advantages  of  an  extended 
education  of  the  people,  which  are  of  much  importance. 
It  has  been  observed  that  if  the  French  had  been  an 
educated  people,  many  of  the  atrocities  of  their  Revo- 
lution would  never  have  happened,  and  I  believe  it. 
Furious  mobs  are  composed,  not  of  enlightened  but  of 
unenlightened  men — of  men  in  whom  the  passions  are 
dominant  over  the  judgment,  because  the  judgment 
had  not  been  exercised,  and  informed,  and  habituated 
to  direct  the  conduct.  A  factious  declaimer  can  much 
less  easily  influence  a  number  of  men  who  acquired  at 
school  the  rudiments  of  knowledge,  and  who  have  sub- 
sequently devoted  their  leisure  to  a  Mechanics'  Insti- 
tute, than  a  multitude  who  cannot  write  or  read,  and 
who  have  never  practised  reasoning  and  considerate 
thought.  And  as  the  education  of  a  people  prevents 
political  evil,  it  effects  political  good.  Despotic  rulers 
well  know  that  knowledge  is  inimical  to  their  power. 
This  simple  fact  is  a  sufficient  reason,  to  a  good  and 
wise  man,  to  approve  knowledge  and  extend  it.  The 
attention  to  public  institutions  and  public  measures 
which  is  inseparable  from  an  educated  population,  is  a 
great  good.  We  all  know  that  the  human  heart  is  such, 
that  the  possession  of  power  is  commonly  attended  with 
a  desire  to  increase  it,  even  in  opposition  to  the  general 
weal.  It  is  acknowledged  that  a  check  is  needed,  and 
no  check  is  either  so  efficient  or  so  safe  as  that  of  a 
watchful  and  intelligent  public  mind  ;  so  watchful,  that 
it  is  prompt  to  discover  and  to  expose  what  is  amiss  ; 
so  intelligent,  that  it  is  able  to  form  rational  judgments 
respecting  the  nature  and  the  means  of  amendment. 


280  EDUCATION  OF  THE   PEOPLE.  [ESSAY   II. 

In  all  public  institutions  there  exists,  and  it  is  happy 
that  there  does  exist,  a  sort  of  vis  inertia  which  habit- 
ually resists  change.  This,  which  is  beneficial  as  a 
general  tendency,  is  often  injurious  from  its  excess  :  the 
state  of  public  institutions  almost  throughout  the  world, 
bears  sufficient  testimony  to  the  truth,  that  they  need 
.alteration  and  amendment  faster  than  they  receive  it — 
that  the  internal  resistance  of  change  is  greater  than  is 
good  for  man.  Unhappily,  the  ordinary  way  in  which 
a  people  have  endeavored  to  amend  their  institutions, 
has  been  by  some  mode  of  violence.  If  you  ask  when 
a  nation  acquired  a  greater  degree  of  freedom,  you  are 
referred  to  some  era  of  revolution  and  probably  of 
blood.  These  are  not  proper,  certainly  they  are  not 
Christian,  remedies  for  the  disease.  It  is  becoming  an 
undisputed  proposition,  that  no  bad  institution  can  per- 
manently stand  against  the  distinct  opinion  of  a  people. 
This  opinion  is  likely  to  be  universal,  and  to  be  intelli- 
gent only  amongst  an  enlightened  community.  Now 
that  reformation  of  public  institutions  which  results 
from  public  opinion,  is  the  very  best  in  kind,  and  is 
likely  to  be  the  best  in  its  mode  : — in  its  kind,  because 
public  opinion  is  the  proper  measure  of  the  needed  alter- 
ation ;  and  in  its  mode,  because  alterations  which  result 
from  such  a  cause,  are  likely  to  be  temperately  made. 
It  may  be  feared  that  some  persons  object  to  an  ex- 
tended education  of  the  people  on  these  very  grounds 
which  we  propose  as  recommendations ;  that  they 
regard  the  tendency  of  education  to  produce  examina- 
tion, and,  if  need  be,  alteration  of  established . institu- 
tions, as  a  reason  for  withholding  it  from  the  poor.  To 
these,  it  is  a  sufficient  answer,  that  if  increase  of 
knowledge  and  habits  of  investigation  tend  to  alter  any 
established  institution,  it  is  fit  that  it  should  be  altered. 
There  appears  no  means  of  avoiding  this  conclusion , 
unless  it  can  be  shown  that  increase  of  knowledge  is 


CHAP.   XI.]  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  281 

usually  attended  with  depravation  of  principle,  and 
that  in  proportion  as  the  judgment  is  exercised  it  de- 
cides amiss. 

Generally,  that  intellectual  education  is  good  for  a 
poor  man  which  is  good  for  his  richer  neighbors  :  in 
other  words,  that  is  good  for  the  poor  which  is  good 
for  man.  There  may  be  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule  ;  but  he  who  is  disposed  to  doubt  the  fitness  of  a 
rich  man's  education  for  the  poor,  will  do  well  to  con- 
sider first  whether  the  rich  man's  education  is  fit  for 
himself.  The  children  of  persons  of  property  can  un- 
doubtedly learn  much  more  than  those  of  a  laborer,  and 
the  laborer  must  select  from  the  rich  man's  system  a 
part  only  for  his  own  child.  But  this  does  not  affect 
the  .general  conclusion.  The  parts  which  he  ought  to 
select  are  precisely  those  parts  which  are  most  neces- 
sary and  beneficial  to  the  rich. 

Great  as  have  been  the  improvements  in  the  methods 
of  conveying  knowledge  to  the  poor,  there  is  reason  to 
think  that  they  will  be  yet  greater.  Some  useful  sug- 
gestions for  the  instruction  of  older  children  may  I 
think  be  obtained  from  the  systems  in  infant  schools. 
In  a  well  conducted  infant  school,  children  acquire  much 
knowledge,  and  they  acquire  it  with  delight.  This 
delight  is  of  extreme  importance  :  perhaps  it  may  safely 
be  concluded,  respecting  all  innocent  knowledge,  that 
if  a  child  acquired  it  with  pleasure  he  is  well  taught. 
It  is  worthy  observation,  that  in  the  infant  system,  les- 
son-learning is  nearly  or  wholly  excluded.  It  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  in  the  time  which  is  devoted  profes- 
sedly to  education  by  the  children  of  the  poor,  much 
extent  of  knowledge  can  be  acquired  ;  but  something 
may  be  acquired  which  is  of  much  more  consequence 
than  mere  school-learning — the  love  and  the  habits  of 
enquiry.  If  education  be  so  conducted  that  it  is  a 
positive  pleasure  to  a  boy  to  learn,  there  is  little  doubt 


282  EDUCATION   OE  THE   PEOPLE.  [ESSAY    II. 

that  this  love  and  habit  will  be  induced.  Here  is  the 
great  advantage  of  early  intellectual  culture.  The 
busiest  have  some  leisure,  leisure  which  they  may  em- 
ploy ill  or  well ;  and  that  they  will  employ  it  well 
may  reasonably  be  expected  when  knowledge  is  thus 
attractive  for  its  own  sake.  That  this  effect  is  in  a 
considerable  degree  actually  produced,  is  indicated  by 
the  improved  character  of  the  books  which  poor  men 
read,  and  in  the  prodigious  increase  in  the  number  of 
those  books.  The  supply  and  demand  are  correspon- 
dent. Almost  every  year  produces  books  for  the 
laboring  classes  of  a  higher  intellectual  order  than  the 
last.  A  journeyman  in  our  days  can  understand  and 
relish  a  work  which  would  have  been  like  Arabic  to  his 
grandfather. 

Of  moral  education  we  say  nothing  here,  except  that 
the  principles  which  are  applicable  to  other  classes  of 
mankind  are  obviously  applicable  to  the  poor.  With 
respect  to  the  inculcation  of  peculiar  religious  opinions 
on  the  children  who  attend  schools  voluntarily  sup- 
ported, there  is  manifestly  the  same  reason  for  incul- 
cating them  in  this  case  as  for  teaching  them  at  all. 
This  supposes  that  the  supporters  of  the  school  are  not 
themselves  divided  in  their  religious  opinions.  If  they 
are,  and  if  the  adherents  to  no  one  creed  are  able  to 
support  a  school  of  their  own,  there  appears  no  ground 
upon  which  they  can  rightly  refuse  to  support  a  school 
in  which  no  religious  peculiarities  are  taught.  It  is 
better  that  intellectual  knowledge,  together  with  im- 
perfect religious  principles  should  be  communicated, 
than  that  children  should  remain  in  darkness.  There 
is  indeed  some  reason  to  suspect  the  genuineness  of 
that  man's  philanthropy,  who  refuses  to  impart  any 
knowledge  to  his  neighbors  because  he  cannot,  at  the 
same  time,  teach  them  his  own  creed. 


CHAP.    XII.]  AMUSEMENTS.  283 

CHAPTER  XII. 
AMUSEMENTS. 

The  Stage — Religious  Amusements — Masquerades — Field  Sports 
— The  Turf — Boxing — Wrestling — Opinions  of  Posterity — 
Popular  Amusements  needless. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,  that  in  almost  all 
Christian  countries  many  of  the  public  and  popular 
amusements  have  been  regarded  as  objectionable  by 
the  more  sober  and  conscientious  part  of  the  com- 
munity. This  opinion  could  scarcely  have  been 
general  unless  it  had  been  just  :  yet  why  should  a 
people  prefer  amusements  of  which  good  men  feel 
themselves  compelled  to  disapprove  ?  Is  it  because  no 
public  recreation  can  be  devised  of  which  the  evil  is  not 
greater  than  the  good  ?  or  because  the  inclinations  of 
most  men  are  such,  that  if  it  were  devised,  they  would 
not  enjoy  it  ?  It  may  be  feared  that  the  desires  which 
are  seeking  for  gratification  are  not  themselves  pure  ; 
and  pure  pleasures  are  not  congenial  to  impure  minds. 
The  real  cause  of.  the  objectionable  nature  of  many 
popular  diversions  is  to  be  sought  in  the  want  of  virtue 
in  the  people. 

Amusement  is  confessedly  a  subordinate  concern  in 
life.  It  is  neither  the  principal  nor  amongst  the  prin- 
cipal objects  of  proper  solicitude.  No  reasonable  man 
sacrifices  the  more  important  thing  to  the  less,  and  that 
a  man's  religious  and  moral  condition  is  of  incompara- 
bly greater  importance  than  his  diversion,  is  sufficiently 
plain.  In  estimating  the  propriety  or  rather  the  law- 
fulness of  a  given  amusement,  it  may  safely  be  laid 
down,  That  none  is  lawful  of  which  the  aggregate  con- 
sequences are  injurious  to  morals  : — nor,  if  its  effects 
upon  the  immediate  agents  are,  in  general,  morally 
bad  : — nor  if  it  occasions  needless  pain  and  misery  to 


284  AMUSEMENTS.  [ESSAY  II. 

men  or  to  animals  : — nor,  lastly,  if  it  occupies  much 
time  or  is  attended  with  much  expense. — Respecting 
all  amusements,  the  question  is  not  whether  in  their 
simple  or  theoretical  character,  they  are  defensible,  but 
whether  they  are  defensible  in  their  actually  existing 
state. 

Thk  Drama. — So  that  if  a  person,  by  way  of  show- 
ing the  propriety  of  theatrical  exhibitions,  should  ask 
whether  there  was  any  harm  in  a  man's  repeating  a 
composition  before  others  and  accompanying  it  with 
appropriate  gestures — he  would  ask  a  very  foolish 
question  :  because  he  would  ask  a  question  that 
possesses  little  or  no  relevancy  to  the  subject. — What 
are  the  ordinary  effects  of  the  stage  upon  those  who 
act  on  it  ?  One  and  one  only  answer  can  be  given — that 
whatever  happy  exceptions  there  may  be,  the  effect  is 
bad, — that  the  moral  and  religious  character  of  actors 
is  lower  than  that  of  persons  in  other  professions.  "  It 
is  an  undeniable  fact,  for  the  truth  of  which  we  may 
safely  appeal  to  every  age  and  nation,  that  the  situa- 
tion of  the  performers,  particularly  of  those  of  the 
female  sex,  is  remarkably  unfavorable  to  the  mainten- 
ance and  growth  of  the  religious  and  moral  principle, 
and  of  course  highly  dangerous  to  their  eternal  inter- 
ests."* 

Therefore,  if  I  take  my  seat  in  the  theatre,  I  have 
paid  three  or  five  shillings  as  an  inducement  to  a 
number  of  persons  to  subject  their  principles  to  extreme 
danger  ; — and  the  defence  which  I  make  is,  that  I  am 
amused  by  it.  Now,  we  affirm  that  this  defence  is 
invalid  ;  that  it  is  a  defence  which  reason  pronounces 
to  be  absurd,  and  morality  to  be  vicious.  Yet  I  have 
no  other  to  make  ;  it  is  the  sum  total  of  my  justifica- 
tion. 

But  this,  which  is  sufficient  to  decide  the  morality  of 
*  Wilberforce  :  Practical  View,  c.  4,  s.  5. 


CHAP.    XII.]  AMUSEMENTS.  285 

the  question,  is  not  the  only  nor  the  chief  part  of  the 
evil.  The  evil  which  is  suffered  by  performers  may 
be  more  intense,  but  upon  spectators  and  others  it  is 
more  extended.  The  night  of  a  play  is  the  harvest 
time  of  iniquity,  where  the  profligate  and  the  sensual 
put  in  their  sickles  and  reap.  It  is  to  no  purpose  to  say 
that  a  man  may  go  to  a  theatre  or  parade  a  saloon 
without  taking  part  in  the  surrounding  licentiousness. 
All  who  are  there  promote  the  licentiousness,  for  if  none 
were  there,  there  would  be  no  licentiousness  ;  that  is 
to  say,  if  none  purchased  tickets  there  would  be  neither 
actors  to  be  depraved  nor  dramas  to  vitiate,  nor  saloons 
to  degrade  and  corrupt,  and  shock  us. — The  whole 
question  of  the  lawfulness  of  the  dramatic  amusements, 
as  they  are  ordinarily  conducted,  is  resolved  into  a  very 
simple  thing  : — After  the  doors  on  any  given  night  are 
closed,  have  the  virtuous  or  the  vicious  dispositions  of 
the  attenders  been  in  the  greater  degree  promoted  ? 
Every  one  knows  that  the  balance  is  on  the  side,  of 
vice,  and  this  conclusively  decides  the  question — "Is 
it  lawful  to  attend?" 

The  same  question  is  to  be  asked,  and  the  same 
answer  I  believe  will  be  returned,  respecting  various 
other  assemblies  for  purposes  of  amusement.  They  do 
more  harm  than  good.  They  please  but  they  injure 
us  ;  and  what  makes  the  case  still  stronger  is,  that  the 
pleasure  is  frequently  such  as  ought  not  to  be  enjoyed. 
A  tippler  enjoys  pleasure  in  becoming  drunk,  but  he  is 
not  to  allege  the  gratification  as  a  set-off  against  the 
immorality.  And  so  it  is  with  no  small  portion  of  the 
pleasures  of  an  assembly.  Dispositions  are  gratified 
which  it  wTere  wiser  to  thwart ;  and,  to  speak  the 
truth,  if  the  dispositions  of  the  mind  were  such  as  they 
ought  to  be,  many  of  these  modes  of  diversion  would 
be  neither  relished  nor  resorted  to.  Some  persons  try 
to  persuade  themselves  that  charity  forms  a  part  of 


286  AMUSEMENTS.  [ESSAY   II. 

their  motive  in  attending  such  places  ;  as  when  the 
profits  of  the  night  are  given  to  a  benevolent  institu- 
tion. They  hope,  I  suppose,  that  though  it  would  not 
be  quite  right  to  go  if  benevolence  were  not  a  gainer, 
yet  that  the  end  warrants  the  means.  But  if  these 
persons  are  charitable,  let  them  give  their  guinea 
without  deducting  half  for  purposes  of  questionable 
propriety.  Religious  amusements,  such  as  oratorios 
and  the  like,  form  one  of  those  artifices  of  chicanery 
by  which  people  cheat,  or  try  to  cheat,  themselves. 
The  music,  say  they,  is  sacred,  is  devotional ;  and  we 
go  to  hear  it  as  we  go  to  church  :  it  excites  and  ani- 
mates our  religious  sensibilities.  This,  in  spite  of  the 
solemnity  of  the  association,  is  really  ludicrous.  These 
scenes  subserve  religion  no  more  than  they  subserve 
chemistry.  They  do  not  increase  its  power  any  more 
than  the  power  of  the  steam-engine.  As  it  respects 
Christianity,  it  is  all  imposition  and  fiction  ;  and  it  is 
unfortunate  that  some  of  the  most  solemn  topics  of  our 
religion  are  brought  into  such  unworthy  and  debasing 
alliance.* 

Masquerades  are  of  a  more  decided  character.  If 
the  pleasure  which  people  derive  from  meeting  in  dis- 
guises consisted  merely  in  the  "fun  and  drollery"  of 
the  thing,  we  might  wonder  to  see  so  many  children  of 
five  and  six  feet  high,  and  leave  them  perhaps  to  their 
childishness  : — but  the  truth  is,  that  to  many  the  zest 
of  the  concealment  consists  in  the  opportunity  which 
it  gives  of  covert  licentiousness ;  of  doing  that  in 
secret,  of  which,  openly,  they  would  profess  to  be 
ashamed.  Some  men  and  some  women  who  affect 
propriety  when  the  face  is  shown,  are  glad  of  a  few 
hours  of  concealed  libertinism.  It  is  a  time  in  which 
principles  are  left  to  guard  the  citadel  of  virtue  with- 
out the  auxiliary  of  public  opinion.  And  ill  do  they 
*  See  also  Essay  II.,  c.  I. 


CHAP.    XII.]  AMUSEMENTS.  287 

guard  it  !  It  is  no  equivocal  indication  of  the  slender 
power  of  a  person's  principles,  when  they  do  not 
restrain  him  any  longer  than  his  misdeeds  will  produce 
exposure.  She  who  is  immodest  at  a  masquerade,  is 
modest  nowhere.  She  may  affect  the  language  of 
delicacy  and  maintain  external  decorum,  but  she  has  no 
purity  of  mind. 

Thk  Field. — If  we  proceed  with  the  calculation  of 
the  benefits  and  mischiefs  of  field-sports,  in  the  mer- 
chant-like manner  of  debtor  and  creditor,  the  balance 
is  presently  found  to  be  greatly  against  them.  The 
advantages  to  him  who  rides  after  hounds  and  shoots 
pheasants,  are — that  he  is  amused,  and  possibly  that 
his  health  is  improved  ;  some  of  the  disadvantages  are 
— that  it  is  unpropitious  to  the  influence  of  religion 
and  the  dispositions  which  religion  induces  ;  that  it 
expends  money  and  time  which  a  man  ought  to  be 
able  to  employ  better  ;  and  that  it  inflicts  gratuitous 
misery  upon  the  inferior  animals.  The  value  of  the 
pleasure  cannot  easily  be  computed,  and  as  to  health 
it  may  pass  for  nothing  ;  for  if  a  man  is  so  little  con- 
cerned for  his  health  that  he  will  not  take  exercise 
without  dogs  and  guns,  he  has  no  reason  to  expect 
other  men  to  concern  themselves  for  it  in  remarking 
upon  his  actions.  And  then  for  the  other  side  of  the 
calculation.  That  field-sports  have  any  tendency  to 
make  a  man  better,  no  one  will  pretend  ;  and  no  one 
who  looks  around  him  will  doubt  that  their  tendency 
is  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
show  that  every  one  who  rides  after  the  dogs  is  a 
worse  man  in  the  evening  than  he  was  in  the  morning  : 
the  influence  of  such  things  is  to  be  sought  in  those 
with  whom  they  are  habitual.  Is  the  character  of  the 
sportsman ,  then,  distinguished  by  religious  sensibility? 
No.  By  activity  of  benevolence  ?  No.  By  intel- 
lectual exertion  ?     No.     By   purity  of  manners  ?     No. 


288  AMUSEMENTS.  [ESSAY   II. 

Sportsmen  are  not  the  persons  who  diffuse  the  light  of 
Christianity,  or  endeavor  to  rectify  the  public  morals, 
or  to  extend  the  empire  of  knowledge.  I,ook  again  at 
the  clerical  sportsman.  Is  he  usually  as  exemplary  in 
the  discharge  of  his  functions  as  those  who  decline 
such  diversions  ?  His  parishioners  know  that  he  is  not. 
So,  then,  the  religious  and  moral  tendency  of  field- 
sports  is  bad.  It  is  not  necessary  to  show  how  the  ill 
effect  is  produced.  It  is  sufficient  that  it  actually  is 
produced. 

As  to  the  expenditure  of  time  and  money,  I  daresay 
we  shall  be  told  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  employ  both 
as  he  chooses.  We  have  heretofore  seen  that  he  has 
no  such  right.  Obligations  apply  just  as  truly  to  the 
mode  of  employing  leisure  and  property,  as  to  the  use 
which  a  man  may  make  of  a  pound  of  arsenic.  The 
obligations  are  not  indeed  alike  enforced  in  a  court  of 
justice  :  the  misuser  of  arsenic  is  carried  to  prison,  the 
misuser  of  time  and  money  awaits  as  sure  an  enquiry 
at  another  tribunal.  But  no  folly  is  more  absurd  than 
that  of  supposing  we  have  a  right  to  do  whatever  the 
law  does  not  punish.  Such  is  the  state  of  mankind,  so 
great  is  the  amount  of  misery  and  degradation,  and  so 
great  are  the  effects  of  money  and  active  philanthropy 
in  meliorating  this  condition  of  our  species,  that  it  is 
no  light  thing  for  a  man  to  employ  his  time  and  prop- 
erty upon  vain  and  needless  gratifications.  It  is  no 
light  thing  to  keep  a  pack  of  hounds,  and  to  spend 
days  and  weeks  in  riding  after  them.  As  to  the  tor- 
ture which  field-sports  inflict  upon  animals,  it  is  won- 
derful to  observe  our  inconsistencies.  He  who  has,  in 
the  day,  inflicted  upon  half  a  dozen  animals  almost  as 
much  torture  as  they  are  capable  of  sustaining,  and 
who  has  wounded  perhaps  half  a  dozen  more,  and  left 
them  to  die  of  pain  or  starvation,  gives  in  the  evening 
a  grave  reproof  to  his  child,  whom  he  sees  amusing 


CHAP.    XII.]  AMUSEMENTS.  289 

himself  with  picking  off  the  wings  of  flies  !  The  in- 
fliction of  pain  is  not  that  which  gives  pleasure  to  the 
sportsman,  (this  were  ferocious  depravity,)  but  he 
voluntarily  inflicts  the  pain  in  order  to  please  himself. 
Yet  this  man  sighs  and  moralizes  over  the  cruelty  of 
children  !  An  appropriate  device  for  a  sportsman's 
dress  would  be  a  pair  of  balances,  of  which  one  scale 
was  laden  with  "  virtue  and  humanity,"  and  the  other 
with  ■ '  sport ; ' '  the  latter  should  be  preponderating 
and  lifting  the  other  into  the  air. 

The  Turf  is  still  worse,  partly  because  it  is  a 
stronghold  of  gambling,  and  therefore  an  efficient  cause 
of  misery  and  wickedness.  It  is  an  amusement  of 
almost  unmingled  evil.  But  upon  whom  is  the  evil 
chargeable?  Upon  the  fifty  or  one  hundred  persons 
only  who  bring  horses  and  make  bets  ?  No  ;  every  man 
participates  who  attends  the  course.  The  great  attrac- 
tion of  many  public  spectacles,  and  of  this  amongst 
others,  consists  more  in  the  company  than  the  ostensi- 
ble object  of  amusement.  Many  go  to  a  race-ground 
who  cannot  tell  when  they  return  what  horse  has  been 
the  victor.  Every  one  therefore  who  is  present  must 
take  his  share  of  the  mischief  and  the  responsibility. 

It  is  the  same  with  respect  to  the  gross  and  vulgar 
diversions  of  boxing,  wrestling,  and  feats  of  running 
and  riding.  There  is  the  same  almost  pure  and  un- 
mingled evil — the  same  popularity  resulting  from  the 
concourses  who  attend,  and,  by  consequence,  the  par- 
ticipation and  responsibility  in  those  who  do  attend. 
The  drunkenness,  and  the  profaneness,  and  the 
debauchery,  lie  in  part  at  the  doors  of  those  who  are 
merely  lookers-on  ;  and  if  these  lookers-on  make  pre- 
tensions to  purity  of  character,  their  example  is  so  much 
the  more  influential  and  their  responsibility  tenfold 
increased. 

The  vicissitudes   of   folly  are   endless :   the   vulgar 


290  AMUSEMENTS.  [ESSAY   II. 

games  of  the  present  day  may  soon  be  displaced  by 
others,  the  same  in  genus,  but  differing  in  species. 
There  is  a  grossness,  a  vulgarity,  a  want  of  mental 
elevation  in  these  things,  which  might  induce  the  man 
of  intelligence  to  reprobate  them  even  if  the  voice  of 
morality  were  silent.  They  are  remains  of  barbarism — 
evidences  that  barbarism  still  maintains  itself  amongst 
us — proofs  that  the  higher  qualities  of  our  nature  are 
not  sufficiently  dominant  over  the  lower. 

These  grossnesses  will  pass  away,  as  the  deadly  con- 
flicts of  men  with  beasts  are  passed  already.  Our 
posterity  will  wonder  at  the  barbarism  of  us,  their 
fathers,  as  we  wonder  at  the  barbarism  of  Rome.  I^et 
him,  then,  who  loves  intellectual  elevation  advance 
beyond  the  present  times,  and  anticipate,  in  the  recrea- 
tions which  he  encourages,  that  period  when  these 
diversions  shall  be  regarded  as  indicating  one  of  the 
intermediate  stages  between  the  ferociousness  of  mental 
darkness  and  the  purity  of  mental  light. 


These  criticisms  might  be  extended  to  many  other 
species  of  amusement  ;  and  it  is  humiliating  to  discover 
that  the  conclusion  will  very  frequently  be  the  same — 
that  the  evil  outbalances  the  good,  and  that  there  are 
no  grounds  upon  which  a  good  man  can  justify  a  par- 
ticipation in  them.  In  thus  concluding,  it  is  possible 
that  the  reader  may  imagine  that  we  would  exclude 
enjoyment  from  the  world,  and  substitute  a  system  of 
irreproachable  austerity.  He  who  thinks  this  is  unac- 
quainted with  the  nature  and  sources  of  our  better 
enjoyments.  It  is  an  ordinary  mistake  to  imagine  that 
pleasure  is  great  only  when  it  is  vivid  or  intemperate, 
as  a  child  fancies  it  were  more  delightful  to  devour  a 
pound  of  sugar  at  once,  than  to  eat  an  ounce  daily  iu 
his  food.  It  is  happily  and  kindly  provided  that  the 
greatest  sum  of  enjoyment  is  that  which  is  quietly  and 


CHAP.    XIII.]  SUICIDE.  29I 

constantly  induced.  No  men  understand  the  nature 
of  pleasure  so  well,  or  possess  it  so  much,  as  those  who 
find  it  within  their  own  doors.  If  it  were  not  that 
moral  education  is  so  bad,  multitudes  would  seek  enjoy- 
ment and  find  it  here,  who  now  fancy  that  they  never 
partake  of  pleasure  except  in  scenes  of  diversion.  It 
is  unquestionably  true  that  no  community  enjoys  life 
more  than  that  which  excludes  all  these  amusements 
from  its  sources  of  enjoyment.  We  use  therefore  the 
language,  not  of  speculation,  but  of  experience,  when 
we  say,  that  none  of  them  is,  in  any  degree,  necessary 
to  the  happiness  of  life. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
SUICIDE. 


Unmanliness  of  Suicide — Forbidden  in  the  New  Testament — Its 

folly. 

There  are  few  subjects  upon  which  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult either  to  write  or  to  legislate  with  effect,  than  that 
of  suicide.  It  is  difficult  to  a  writer,  because  a  man 
does  not  resolve  upon  the  act  until  he  has  first  become 
steeled  to  some  of  the  most  powerful  motives  that  can 
be  urged  upon  the  human  mind  ;  and  to  the  legislator, 
because  he  can  inflict  no  penalty  upon  the  offending 
party. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  there  is  little  probability  of 
diminishing  the  frequency  of  this  miserable  offence  by 
urging  the  considerations  which  philosophy  suggests. 
The  voice  of  nature  is  louder  and  stronger  than  the 
voice  of  philosophy  :  and  as  nature  speaks  to  the  suicide 
in  vain,  what  is  the  hope  that  philosophy  will  be 
regarded  ? — There  appears  to  be  but  one  efficient  means 


292  SUICIDE.  [ESSAY   II. 

by  which  the  mind  can  be  armed  against  the  tempta- 
tions to  suicide,  because  there  is   but   one   that   can 
support  it  against  every  evil  of  life — practical  religion — 
belief   in   the  providence    of    God — confidence   in   his 
wisdom — hope  in  his  goodness.      The  only  anchor  that 
can  hold  us  in  safety,  is  that  which  is  fixed  "within 
the  vail. ' '     He  upon  whom  religion  possesses  its  proper 
influence,   finds  that  it  enables  him  to  endure,   with 
resigned    patience,    every    calamity    of    life.      When 
patience  thus  fulfils  its  perfect  work,  suicide,  which  is 
the  result  of  impatience,  cannot  be  committed.    He  who 
is  surrounded,  by  whatever  means,  with  pain  or  misery, 
should  remember  that  the  present  existence  is  strictly 
pi'obationary — a  scene  upon  which  we  are  to  be  exer- 
cised, and  tried,  and  tempted  ;  and  in  which  we  are  to 
manifest   whether   we   are   willing   firmly  to   endure. 
The  good  or  evil  of  the  present  life  is  of   importance 
chiefly  as  it  influences  our  allotment  in  futurity  :  suf- 
ferings are   permitted   for    our  advantage  :     they   are 
designed  to  purify  and  rectify  the  heart.     The  universal 
Father  ' '  scourgeth  every  son  whom  he   receiveth  ; ' ' 
and  the  suffering,  the  scourging,  is  of  little  account  in 
comparison  with  the  prospects  of  another  world.     It  is 
not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall 
follow  —that  glory  of  which  an   exceeding   and  eternal 
weight  is  the  reward  of  a  "patient  conti?iua7ice  in  well 
doing."     To  him  who  thus  regards  misery,  not  as  an 
evil  but  as  a  good  ;  not  as  the   unrestrained  assault  of 
chance  or  malice,  but  as  the  beneficent  discipline  of  a 
Father ;    to   him   who   remembers    that    the   time    is 
approaching  in  which  he  will  be  able  most  feelingly  to 
say,    "For  all  I  bless  Thee — most   for  the  severe;" — 
every  affliction  is  accompanied  with  its  proper  allevia- 
tion :  the  present  hour  may  distress  but  it  does  not  over- 
whelm him  ;  he  may  be  perplexed  but  is  not  in  despair  : 
he  sees  the  darkness  and  feels  the  storm,  but  he  knows 


CHAP.    XI II.]  SUICIDE.  293 

that  light  will  again  arise,  and  that  the  storm  will 
eventually  be  hushed  with  an  efficacious,  ' '  Peace  be 
still ;"  so  that  there  shall  be  a  great  calm. 

Compared  with  these  motives  to  avoid  the  first 
promptings  to  suicide,  others  are  like  to  be  of  little 
effect ;  and  yet  they  are  neither  inconsiderable  nor  few. 
It  is  more  dignified,  more  worthy  an  enlightened 
and  manly  understanding,  to  meet  and  endure  an  inev- 
itable evil  than  to  sink  beneath  it.  He  who  feels 
prompted  to  suicide,  sacrifices  his  life  to  his  fears. 
The  suicide  balances  between  opposing  objects  of  dread, 
(for  dreadful  self-destruction  must  be  supposed  to  be,) 
and  chooses  the  alternative  which  he  fears  least.  If 
his  courage,  his  firmness,  his  manliness,  were  greater, 
he  who  chooses  the  alternative  of  suicide,  like  him  who 
chooses  the  duel,  would  endure  the  evil  rather  than 
avoid  it  in  a  manner  which  dignity  and  religion  forbid. 
The  lesson  too  which  the  self- destroyer  teaches  to  his 
connections,  of  sinking  in  despair  under  the  evils  of 
life,  is  one  of  the  most  pernicious  which  a  man  can 
bequeath.  The  power  of  the  example  is  also  great. 
Every  act  of  suicide  tacitly  conveys  the  sanction  of  one 
more  judgment  in  its  favor :  frequency  of  repetition 
diminishes  the  sensation  of  abhorrence,  and  makes  suc- 
ceeding sufferers  resort  to  it  with  less  reluctance. 
! '  Besides  which  general  reasons,  each  case  will  be 
aggravated  by  its  own  proper  and  particular  conse- 
quences ;  by  the  duties  that  are  deserted  ;  by  the  claims 
that  are  defrauded  ;  by  the  loss,  affliction,  or  disgrace 
which  our  death,  or  the  manner  of  it,  causes  our  family, 
kindred,  or  friends  ;  by  the  occasion  we  give  to  many 
to  suspect  the  sincerity  of  our  moral  religious  profes- 
sions, and,  together  with  ours,  those  of  all  others  ;"* 
and  lastly,  by  the  scandal  which  we  bring  upon  religion 
*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  4,  c.  3. 


294  SUICIDE.  [ESSAY    II. 

itself  by  declaring, 'practically,  that  it  is  not  able  to 
support  man  under  the  calamities  of  life. 

Some  men  say  that  the  New  Testament  contains  no 
prohibition  of  suicide.  If  this  were  true,  it  would  avail 
nothing,  because  there  are  many  things  which  it  does 
not  forbid,  but  which  every  one  knows  to  be  wicked. 
But  in  reality  it  does  forbid  it.  Every  exhortation 
which  it  gives  to  be  patient,  every  encouragement  to 
trust  in  God,  every  consideration  which  it  urges  as  a 
support  under  affliction  and  distress,  is  a  virtual  prohi- 
bition of  suicide  ; — because,  if  a  man  commits  suicide, 
he  rejects  every  such  advice  and  encouragement,  and 
disregards  every  such  motive. 

To  him  who  believes  either  in  revealed  or  natural 
religion,  there  is  a  certain  folly  in  the  commission  of 
suicide  :  for  from  what  does  he  fly  ?  From  his  present 
sufferings  ;  whilst  death,  for  aught  that  he  has  reason 
to  expect,  or  at  any  rate  for  aught  that  he  knows,  may 
only  be  the  portal  to  sufferings  more  intense.  Natural 
religion,  I  think,  gives  no  countenance  to  the  supposi- 
tion that  suicide  can  be  approved  by  the  Deity,  because 
it  proceeds  upon  the  belief  that,  in  another  state  of 
existence,  he  will  compensate  good  men  for  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  present.  At  the  best,  and  under  either 
religion,  it  is  a  desperate  stake.  He  that  commits 
murder  may  repent,  and  we  hope,  be  forgiven  ;  but  he 
that  destroys  himself,  whilst  he  incurs  a  load  of  guilt, 
cuts  off,  by  the  act,  the  power  of  repentance. 

Not  every  act  of  suicide  is  to  be  attributed  to  excess 
of  misery.  Some  shoot  themselves  or  throw  themselves 
into  a  river  in  rage  or  revenge,  in  order  to  inflict  pain 
and  remorse  upon  those  who  have  ill  used  them.  Such, 
it  is  to  be  suspected,  is  sometimes  a  motive  to  self-de- 
struction in  disappointed  love.  The  unhappy  person 
leaves  behind  some  message  or  letter,  in  the  hope  of 


CHAP.    XIV.]  RIGHTS   OF  SKIyF-DKFENCK.  295 

exciting  that  affection  and  commiseration  by  the 
catastrophe,  which  he  could  not  excite  when  alive. 
Perhaps  such  persons  hope,  too,  that  the  world  will 
sigh  over  their  early  fate,  tell  of  the  fidelity  of  their 
loves,  and  throw  a  romantic  melancholy  over  their 
story.  This  needs  not  to  be  a  subject  of  wonder  :  un- 
numbered multitudes  have  embraced  death  in  other 
forms  from  kindred  motives.  We  hear  continually  of 
those  who  die  for  the  sake  of  glory.  This  is  but 
another  phantom,  and  the  less  amiable  phantom  of  the 
two.  It  is  just  as  reasonable  to  die  in  order  that  the 
world  may  admire  our  true  love,  as  in  order  that  it 
may  admire  our  bravery.  And  the  lover's  hope  is  the 
better  founded.  There  are  too  many  aspirants  for 
glory  for  each  to  get  even  his  ' '  peppercorn  of  praise. ' ' 
But  the  lover  may  hope  for  higher  honors  ;  a  paragraph 
may  record  his  fate  through  the  existence  of  a  weekly 
paper ;  he  may  be  talked  of  through  half  a  county  ; 
and  some  kindred  spirit  may  inscribe  a  tributary  sonnet 
in  a  lady's  album. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

RIGHTS  OF  SELF-DEFENCE. 

These  rights  not  absolute  —  Their  limits  —  Personal  attack- 
Preservation  of  property — Much  resistance  lawful — Effects  of 
forbearance — Sharpe — Barclay — Ellwood. 

The  right  of  defending  ourselves  against  violence  is 
easily  deducible  from  the  law  of  nature.  There  is 
however  little  need  to  deduce  it,  because  mankind  are 
at  least  sufficiently  persuaded  of  its  lawfulness. — The 
great  question,  which  the  opinions  and  principles  that 
now  influence  the  world  makes  it  rieedful  to  discuss  is, 
whether  the  right  of  self-defence  is  absolute  and  un- 


296  RIGHTS  OF  SEI,F-DEFENCK.  [ESSAY   II. 

conditional — whether  every  action  whatever  is  lawful, 
provided  it  is  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  life  ? 
They  who  maintain  the  affirmative,  maintain  a  great 
deal ;  for  they  maintain  that  whenever  life  is  en- 
dangered, all  rules  of  morality  are,  as  it  respects  the 
individual,  suspended,  annihilated  :  every  moral  obli- 
gation is  taken  away  by  the  single  fact  that  life  is 
threatened. 

Yet  the  language  that  is  ordinarily  held  upon  the 
subject  implies  the  supposition  of  all  this.  "If  our 
lives  are  threatened  with  assassination  or  open  violence 
from  the  hands  of  robbers  or  enemies,  any  means  of  de- 
fence would  be  allowed,  and  laudable."*  Again, 
"  There  is  one  case  in  which  all  extremities  are  justifi- 
able, namely,  when  our  life  is  assaulted,  and  it  be- 
comes necessary  for  our  preservation  to  kill  the 
assailant."  f 

The  reader  may  the  more  willingly  enquire  whether 
these  propositions  are  true,  because  most  of  those  who 
lay  them  down  are  at  little  pains  to  prove  their  truth. 
Men  are  extremely  willing  to  acquiesce  in  it  without 
proof,  and  writers  and  speakers  think  it  unnecessary  to 
adduce  it.  Thus  perhaps  it  happens  that  fallacy  is  not 
detected  because  it  is  not  sought.  —  If  the  reader 
should  think  that  some  of  the  instances  which  follow 
are  remote  from  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  he  is  re- 
quested to  remember  that  we  are  discussing  the  sound- 
ness of  an  alleged  absolute  ride.  If  it  be  found  that 
there  are  or  have  been  cases  in  which  it  is  not  absolute 
— cases  in  which  all  extremities  are  not  lawful  in  de- 
fence of  life — then  the  rule  is  not  sound  :  then  there 
are  some  limits  to  the  right  of  self-defence. 

If  ' ' any  means  of  defence  are  laudable, "  if  "all ex- 
tremities are  justifiable,"  then  they  are  not  confined  to 

*  Grotius  :  Rights  of  War  and  Peace,  f  Paley  :  Mor.  and 
Pol.  Phil.  p.  3,  b.  iv.  c.  1. 


CHAP.    XIV.]  RIGHTS  OF  SFl,F-DFFENCE. 


297 


acts  of  resistance  to  the  assailing  party.  There  may 
be  other  conditions  upon  which  life  may  be  preserved 
than  that  of  violence  towards  him.  Some  ruffians 
seize  a  man  in  the  highway,  and  will  kill  him  unless 
he  will  conduct  them  to  his  neighbor's  property  and 
assist  them  in  carrying  it  off.  May  this  man  unite 
with  them  in  the  robbery  in  order  to  save  his  life,  or 
may  he  not  ?  If  he  may,  what  becomes  of  the  law, 
Thou  shalt  not  steal  ?  If  he  may  not,  then  not  every 
means  by  which  a  man  may  preserve  his  life  is  "laud- 
able ' '  or  "  allowed. ' '  We  have  found  an  exception 
to  the  rule.  There  are  twenty  other  wicked  things 
which  violent  men  may  make  the  sole  condition  of  not 
taking  our  lives.  Do  all  wicked  things  become  lawful 
because  life  is  at  stake  ?  If  they  do,  morality  is  surely 
at  an  end  :  if  they  do  not,  such  propositions  as  those  of 
Grotitis  and  Paley  are  untrue. 

A  pagan  has  unalterably  resolved  to  offer  me  up  in 
sacrifice  on  the  morrow,  unless  I  will  acknowledge  the 
deity,  of  his  gods  and  worship  them.  I  shall  presume 
that  the  Christian  will  regard  these  acts  as  being, 
under  every  possible  circumstance,  unlawful.  The 
night  offers  me  an  opportunity  of  assassinating  him. 
Now  I  am  placed,  so  far  as  the  argument  is  concerned, 
in  precisely  the  same  situation  with  respect  to  this 
man,  as  a  traveller  is  with  respect  to  a  ruffian  with  a 
pistol-  Life  in  both  cases  depends  on  killing  the  of- 
fender. —  Both  are  acts  of  self-defence.  Am  I  at 
liberty  to  assassinate  this  man?  The  heart  of  the 
Christian  surely  answers,  no.  Here  then  is  a  case  in 
which  I  may  not  take  a  violent  man's  life  in  order  to 
save  my  own. — We  have  said  that  the  heart  of  the 
Christian  answers,  no  :  and  this  we  think  is  a  just 
species  of  appeal.  But  if  any  one  doubts  whether  the 
assassination  would  be  unlawful,  let  him  consider 
whether   one   of   the   Christian   apostles   would   have 


298  RIGHTS  OF  SEI,F-DEFENCE.  [ESSAY   II. 

committed  it  in  such  a  case.  Here,  at  any  rate,  the  heart 
of  every  man  answers,  no.  And  mark  the  reason — be- 
cause every  man  perceives  that  the  act  would  have 
been  palpably  inconsistent  with  the  apostolic  character 
and  conduct ;  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  with  a  Chris- 
tian character  and  conduct. 

Or  put  such  a  case  in  a  somewhat  different  form.     A 
furious  Turk  holds  a  scimitar  over  my  head,  and  de- 
clares he  will  instantly  dispatch  me  unless  I  abjure 
Christianity  and  acknowledge  the   divine  legation  of 
"  the  Prophet."     Now  there  are  two  supposable  ways 
in  which  I  may  save  my  life  ;  one  by  contriving  to  stab 
the  Turk,  and  one  "  by  denying  Christ  before  men." 
You  say  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  deny  Christ,-  but  I  am 
at  liberty  to  stab  the  man.      Why  am  I  not  at  liberty 
to  deny  him  ?    Because  Christianity  forbids  it.     Then 
we   require   you   to   show  that   Christianity  does  not 
forbid  you  to  take  his  life.     Our  religion  pronounces 
both  actions  to  be  wrong.     You  say  that,  under  these 
circumstances,  the   killing  is   right.     Where   is  your 
proof  ?  What  is  the  ground  of  your  distinction  ? — But, 
whether  it  can  be  adduced  or  not,  our  immediate  argu- 
ment is  established — That  there  are  some  things  which  it 
is  not  lawful  to  do  in  order  to  preserve  our  lives. — This 
conclusion  has  indeed  been  practically  acted  upon.     A 
company  of  inquisitors  and  their  agents  are  about  to 
conduct  a  good  man  to  the  stake.     If  he  could  by  any 
means  destroy  these  men,  he  might  save  his  life.     It  is 
a  question  therefore  of  self-defence.     Supposing  these 
means  to  be  within  his  power — supposing  he  could 
contrive  a  mine,  and  by  suddenly  firing  it,  blow  his 
persecutors    into    the    air — would   it  be  lawful    and 
Christian  thus  to  act  ?    No.     The  common  judgments 
of  mankind  respecting  the  right  temper  and  conduct  of 
the  martyr,   pronounce  it   to  be   wrong.     It   is  pro- 
nounced to  be  wrong  by  the  language  and  example  of 


CHAP.   XIV.]  RIGHTS  OF  SEXF-DEFENCE.  299 

the  first  teachers  of  Christianity.  The  conclusion 
therefore  again  is  that  all  extremities  are  not  allowable 
in  order  to  preserve  life  ; — that  there  is  a  limit  to  the 
right  of  self-defence. 

It  would  be  to  no  purpose  to  say  that  in  some  of  the 
instances  which  have  been  proposed,  religious  duties 
interfere  with  and  limit  the  rights  of  self-defence. 
This  is  a  common  fallacy.  Religious  duties  and  moral 
duties  are  identical  in  point  of  obligation,  for  they  are 
imposed  by  one  authority.  Religious  duties  are  not 
obligatory  for  any  other  reason  than  that  which 
attaches  to  moral  duties  also  ;  namely  the  will  of  God. 
He  who  violates  the  moral  law  is  as  truly  unfaithful  in 
his  allegiance  to  God,  as  he  who  denies  Christ  before  men. 

So  that  we  come  at  last  to  one  single  and  simple 
question,  whether  taking  the  life  of  a  person  who 
threatens  ours,  is  or  is  not  compatible  with  the  moral 
law.  We  refer  for  an  answer  to  the  broad  principles 
of  Christian  piety  and  Christian  benevolence  ;  that 
piety  which  reposes  habitual  confidence  in  the  Divine 
Providence,  and  an  habitual  preference  of  futurity  to 
the  present  time  ;  and  that  benevolence  which  not  only 
loves  our  neighbors  as  ourselves,  but  feels  that  the 
Samaritan  or  the  enemy  is  a  neighbor.  There  is  no 
conjecture  in  life  in  which  the  exercise  of  this  benevo- 
lence may  be  suspended ;  none  in  which  we  are  not 
required  to  maintain  and  to  practise  it.  Whether  want 
implores  our  compassion,  or  ingratitude  returns  ill  for 
kindness  ;  whether  a  fellow  creature  is  drowning  in  a 
river  or  assailing  us  on  the  highway  ;  everywhere,  and 
under  all  circumstances,  the  duty  remains. 

Is  killing  an  assailant,  then,  within  or  without  the 
limits  of  this  benevolence? — As  to  the  man,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  no  good-will  is  exercised  towards  him  by 
shooting  him  through  the  head.  Who  indeed  will  dis- 
pute that,  before  we  can  thus  destroy  him,  benevolence 


300  RIGHTS  OP  SEXF-DEFENCE.  [ESSAY   II. 

towards  him  must  be  excluded  from  our  minds  ?  We 
not  only  exercise  no  benevolence  ourselves,  but  pre- 
clude him  from  receiving  it  from  any  human  heart  ; 
and,  which  is  a  serious  item  in  the  account,  we  cut  him 
off  from  all  possibility  of  reformation.  To  call  sinners 
to  repentance,  was  one  of  the  great  characteristics  of 
the  mission  of  Christ.  Does  it  appear  consistent  with 
this  characteristic  for  one  of  His  followers  to  take  away 
from  a  sinner  the  power  of  repentance  ?  Is  it  an  act  that 
accords,  and  is  congruous,  with  Christian  love  ? 

But  an  argument  has  been  attempted  here.  That 
we  may  ' '  kill  the  assailant  is  evident  in  a  state  of 
nature,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  we  are  bound  to 
prefer  the  aggressor's  life  to  our  own  ;  that  is  to  say, 
to  love  our  enemy  better  than  ourselves,  which  can 
never  be  a  debt  of  justice,  nor  any  where  appears  to  be 
a  duty  of  charity."*  The  answer  is  this  :  That 
although  we  may  not  be  required  to  love  our  enemy 
better  than  ourselves,  we  are  required  to  love  him  as 
ourselves  ;  and  therefore,  in  the  supposed  case,  it  would 
still  be  a  question  equally  balanced  which  life  ought  to 
be  sacrificed  ;  for  it  is  quite  clear  that,  if  we  kill  the 
assailant ,  we  love  him  less  than  ourselves,  which  does 
seem  to  militate  against  a  duty  of  charity.  But  the 
truth  is  that  he  who,  from  motives  of  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God,  spares  the  aggressor's  life  even  to  the 
endangering  his  own,  does  exercise  love  both  to  the 
aggressor  and  to  himself,  perfectly:  to  the  aggressor, 
because  by  sparing  his  life  we  give  him  the  opportunity 
of  repentance  and  amendment :  to  himself,  because 
every  act  of  obedience  to  God  is  perfect  benevolence 
towards  ourselves  ;  it  is  consulting  and  promoting  our 
most  valuable  interests  ;  it  is  propitiating  the  favor  of 
Him  who  is  emphatically  "  a  rich  rewarder." — So  that 
the  question  remains  as  before,  not  whether  we  should 
*  Paley  :  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  p.  3,  b.  4.  c.  1. 


CHAP.    XIV.]  RIGHTS   OF  SELF-DEFENCE.  301 

love  our  enemy  better  than  ourselves,  but  whether 
Christian  principles  are  acted  upon  in  destroying  him  : 
and  if  they  are  not,  whether  we  should  prefer  Chris- 
tianity to  ourselves  ;  whether  we  should  be  willing  to 
lose  our  life  for  Christ's  sake  and  the  gospel's. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  he  should  exercise 
benevolence  to  the  public  as  well  as  to  the  offender, 
and  that  we  may  exercise  more  benevolence  to  them 
by  killing  than  by  sparing  him.  But  very  few  persons, 
when  they  kill  a  man  who  attacks  them,  kill  him  out 
of  benevolence  to  the  public.  That  is  not  the  motive 
which  influences  their  conduct,  or  which  they  at  all 
take  into  the  account.  Besides,  it  is  by  no  means  cer- 
tain that  the  public  would  lose  anything  by  the  for- 
bearance. To  be  sure,  a  man  can  do  no  more  mischief 
after  he  is  killed  ;  but  then  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that 
robbers  are  more  desperate  and  more  murderous  from 
the  apprehension  of  swords  and  pistols  than  they 
would  be  without  it.  Men  are  desperate  in  proportion 
to  their  apprehensions  of  danger.  The  plunderer  who 
feels  a  confidence  that  his  own  life  will  not  be  taken, 
may  conduct  his  plunder  with  comparative  gentleness  ; 
whilst  he  who  knows  that  his  life  is  in  immediate 
jeopardy,  stuns  or  murders  his  victim  lest  he  should  be 
killed  himself.  The  great  evil  which  a  family  sustains 
by  a  robbery  is  often  not  the  loss,  but  the  terror  and 
the  danger  ;  and  these  are  the  evils  which,  by  the  ex- 
ercise of  forbearance,  would  be  diminished.  So  that, 
if  some  bad  men  are  prevented  from  committing  rob- 
beries by  the  fear  of  death,  the  public  gains  in  other 
ways  by  the  forbearance  :  nor  is  it  by  any  means  cer- 
tain that  the  balance  of  advantages  is  in  favor  of  the 
more  violent  course. — The  argument  which  we  are  op- 
posing proceeds  on  the  supposition  that  our  own  lives 
are  endangered.  Now  it  is  a  fact  that  this  very  danger 
results,  in  part,  from  the  want  of  habits  of  forbearance. 


302  RIGHTS  OE  SELF-DEFENCE.  [ESSAY   II. 

We  publicly  profess  that  we  would  kill  an  assailant ; 
and  the  assailant,  knowing  this,  prepares  to  kill  us 
when  otherwise  he  would  forbear. 

And  after  all,  if  it  were  granted  that  a  person  is  at 
liberty  to  take  an  assailant's  life  in  order  to  preserve  his 
own,  how  is  he  to  know,  in  the  majority  of  instances, 
whether  his  own  would  be  taken  ?  When  a  man  breaks 
into  a  person's  house  and  this  person,  as  soon  as  he 
conies  up  with  the  robber,  takes  out  a  pistol  and  shoots 
him,  we  are  not  to  be  told  that  this  man  was  killed 
"  in  defence  of  life."  Or  go  a  step  further,  and  a  step 
further  still,  by  which  the  intention  of  the  robber  to 
commit  personal  violence '  or  inflict  death  is  more  and 
more  probable  : — You  must  at  last  shoot  him  in  un- 
certainty whether  your  life  was  endangered  or  not. 
Besides,  you  can  withdraw — you  can  fly.  None  but 
the  predetermined  murderer  wishes  to  commit  murder. 
But  perhaps  you  exclaim — "  Fly  !  fly,  and  leave  your 
property,  unprotected  !  "  Yes — unless  you  mean  to 
say  that  preservation  of  property,  as  well  as  preserva- 
tion of  life,  makes  it  lawful  to  kill  an  offender.  This 
were  to  adopt  a  new  and  a  very  different  proposition  ; 
but  a  proposition  which  I  suspect  cannot  be  separated 
in  practice  from  the  former.  He  who  affirms  that  he 
may  kill  another  in  order  to  preserve  his  life,  and  that 
he  may  endanger  his  life  in  order  to  protect  his  prop- 
erty, does  in  reality  affirm  that  he  may  kill  another  in 
order  to  preserve  his  property.  But  such  a  proposi- 
tion, in  an  unconditional  form,  no  one  surely  will 
tolerate.  The  laws  of  the  land  do  not  admit  it,  nor  do 
they  even  admit  the  right  of  taking  another's  life 
simply  because  he  is  attempting  to  take  ours.  They 
require  that  we  should  be  tender  even  of  the  murderer's 
life,  and  that  we  should  fly  rather  than  destroy  it.  * 

We  say  that  the  proposition  that  we  may  take  life 
*  Blackstone  :    Com.  v.  4,  c.  4. 


CHAP.   XIV.]  RIGHTS  OP  SPI,P-DEPENCP.  303 

in  order  to  preserve  our  property  is  intolerable.  To  pre- 
serve how  much?  five  hundred  pounds,  or  fifty,  or 
ten,  or  a  shilling  or  a  sixpence  ?  It  has  actually  been 
declared  that  the  rights  of  self-defence  "  justify  a  man 
in  taking  all  forcible  methods  which  are  necessary,  in 
order  to  procure  the  restitution  of  the  freedom  or  the 
property  of  which  he  had  been  unjustly  deprived."  * 
All  forcible  methods  to  obtain  restitution  of  property  ! 
No  limit  to  the  nature  or  effects  of  the  force  !  No 
limit  to  the  insignificance  of  the  amount  of  the  prop- 
erty !  Apply,  then,  the  rule.  A  boy  snatches  a 
bunch  of  grapes  from  a  fruiterer's  stall.  The  fruiterer 
runs  after  the  thief,  but  finds  that  he  is  too  light  of 
foot  to  be  overtaken.  Moreover,  the  boy  eats  as  he 
runs.  "  All  forcible  methods,"  reasons  the  fruiterer, 
"are  justifiable  to  obtain  restitution  of  property.  I 
may  fire  after  the  plunderer,  and  when  he  falls  regain 
my  grapes."  All  this  is  just  and  right,  if  Gisborne's 
proposition  is  true.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  lay 
down  maxims  in  morality. 

The  conclusion,  then,  to  which  we  are  led  by  these 
enquiries  is,  that  he  who  kills  another,  even  upon  the 
plea  of  self-defence,  does  not  do  it  in  the  predominance 
nor  in  the  exercise  of  Christian  dispositions :  and  if 
this  is  true,  is  it  not  also  true,  that  his  life  cannot  be 
thus  taken  in  conformity  with  the  Christian  law  ? 

But  this  is  very  far  from  concluding  that  no  resist- 
ance may  be  made  to  aggression.  We  may  make,  and 
we  ought  to  make,  a  great  deal.  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
civil  magistrate  to  repress  the  violence  of  one  man 
towards  another,  and  by  consequence  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  individual,  when  the  civil  power  cannot  operate,  to 
endeavor  to  repress  it  himself.  I  perceive  no  reasona- 
ble exception  to  the  rule — that  whatever  Christianity 
permits  the  magistrate  to  do  in  order  to  restrain 
*  Gisborne  :    Moral   Philosophy. 


304  RIGHTS  OF  SElvF-DEFENCE.  [ESSAY  II. 

violence,  it  permits  the  individual,  under  such  circum- 
stances to  do  also.  I  know  the  consequences  to  which 
this  rule  leads  in  the  case  of  the  punishment  of  death, 
and  of  other  questions.  These  questions  will  hereafter 
be  discussed.  In  the  mean  time,  it  may  be  an  act  of 
candor  to  the  reader  to  acknowledge,  that  our  chief 
motive  for  the  discussions  of  the  present  chapter,  has 
been  to  pioneer  the  way  for  a  satisfactory  investigation 
of  the  punishment  of  death,  and  of  other  modes  by 
which  human  life  is  taken  away. 

Many  kinds  of  resistance  to  aggression  come  strictly 
within  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  benevolence.  He 
who,  by  securing  a  man,  prevents  him  from  commit- 
ting an  act  of  great  turpitude,  is  certainly  his  benefac- 
tor ;  and  if  he  be  thus  reserved  for  justice,  the  benevo- 
lence is  great  both  to  him  and  to  the  public.  It  is  an 
act  of  much  kindness  to  a  bad  man  to  secure  him  for 
the  penalties  of  the  law  :  or  it  would  be  such,  if  penal 
law  were  in  the  state  in  which  it  ought  to  be,  and  to 
which  it  appears  to  be  making  some  approaches.  It 
would  then  be  very  probable  that  the  man  would  be 
reformed  :  and  this  is  the  greatest  benefit  which  can  be 
conferred  upon  him  and  upon  the  community. 

The  exercise  of  Christian  forbearance  towards  violent 
men  is  not  tantamount  to  an  invitation  of  outrage. 
Cowardice  is  one  thing ;  this  forbearance  is  another- 
The  man  of  true  forbearance  is  of  all  men  the  least 
cowardly.  It  requires  courage  in  a  greater  degree  and 
of  a  higher  order  to  practice  it  when  life  is  threatened, 
than  to  draw  a  sword  or  fire  a  pistol. — No  :  It  is  the 
peculiar  privilege  of  Christian  virtue  to  approve  itself 
even  to  the  bad.  There  is  something  in  the  nature  of 
that  calmness,  and  self-possession,  and  forbearance, 
that  religion  effects,  which  obtains,  nay  which  almost 
commands  regard  and  respect.  How  different  the  effect 
upon  the  violent  tenants  of  Newgate,  the  hardihood  of 


CHAP.    XIV.]  RIGHTS  OF  SKI^-DKFKNCE.  305 

a  turnkey  and  the  mild  courage  of  an  Elizabeth  Fry  ! 
Experience,  incontestable  experience,  has  proved,  that 
the  minds  of  few  men  are  so  depraved  or  desperate  as 
to  prevent  them  from  being  influenced  by  real  Christian 
conduct.  L,et  him  therefore  who  advocates  the  taking 
the  life  of  an  aggressor,  first  show  that  all  other  means 
of  safety  are  vain  ;  let  him  show  that  bad  men,  not- 
withstanding the  exercise  of  true  Christian  forbearance, 
persist  in  their  purposes  of  death  :  when  he  has  done 
this  he  will  have  adduced  an  argument  in  favor  of 
taking  their  lives  which  will  not  indeed  be  conclusive, 
but  which  will  approach  nearer  to  conclusiveness  than 
any  that  has  yet  been  adduced. 

Of  the  consequences  of  forbearance,  even  in  the  case 
of  personal  attack,  there  are  some  examples  :  Arch- 
bishop Sharpe  was  assaulted  by  a  footpad  on  the  high- 
way, who  presented  a  pistol  and  demanded  his  money. 
The  Archbishop  spoke  to  the  robber  in  the  language 
of  a  fellow  man  and  of  a  Christian.  The  man  was 
really  in  distress,  and  the  prelate  gave  him  such  money 
as  he  had,  and  promised  that,  if  he  would  call  at  the 
palace,  he  would  make  up  the  amount  to  fifty  pounds. 
This  was  the  sum  of  which  the  robber  had  said  he 
stood  in  the  utmost  need.  The  man  called  and 
received  the  money.  About  a  year  and  a  half  after- 
wards, this  man  again  came  to  the  palace  and 
brought  back  the  same  sum.  He  said  that  his  cir- 
cumstances had  become  improved  and  that,  through 
the  "astonishing  goodness"  of  the  Archbishop,  he 
had  become  "  the  most  penitent,  the  most  grateful,  and 
happiest  of  his  species." — L,et  the  reader  consider  how 
different  the  Archbishop's  feelings  were,  from  what 
they  would  have  been  if,  by  his  hand  this  man  had 
been  cut  off.* 

*See  Lond.  Chron.  "Aug.  12,  1785."  See  also  life  of  Granville 
Sharpe,  Esq.,  p.  13. 


3°6  RIGHTS  OF  self-defence,  [essay  II. 

Barclay,  the  Apologist,  was  attacked  by  a  highway- 
man. He  substituted  for  the  ordinary  modes  of  resist- 
ance, a  calm  expostulation.  The  felon  dropped  his 
presented  pistol,  and  offered  no  further  violence.  A 
Leonard  Fell  was  similarly  attacked,  and  from  him  the 
robber  took  both  his  money  and  his  horse,  and  then 
threatened  to  blow  out  his  brains.  Fell  solemnly  spoke 
to  the  man  on  the  wickedness  of  his  life.  The  robber 
was  astonished  :  he  had  expected,  perhaps,  curses,  or 
perhaps  a  dagger.  He  declared  he  would  not  keep 
either  the  horse  or  the  money,  and  returned  both.  "  If 
thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him  ;  for  in  so  doing  thou 
shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head."* — The  tenor  of 
the  short  narrative  that  follows  is  somewhat  different. 
Ellwood,  who  is  known  to  the  literary  world  as  the 
suggester  to  Milton  of  Paradise  Regained,  was  attend- 
ing his  father  in  his  coach.  Two  men  waylaid  them 
in  the  dark  and  stopped  the  carriage.  Young  Ellwood 
got  out,  and  on  going  up  to  the  nearest,  the  ruffian 
raised  a  heavy  club,  "when,"*  says  Ellwood,  "I 
whipped  out  my  rapier  and  made  a  pass  upon  him.  I 
could  not  have  failed  running  him  through  up  to  the 
hilt,"  but  the  sudden  appearance  of  the  bright  blade 
terrified  the  man  so  that  he  stepped  aside,  avoided  the 
thrust,  and  both  he  and  the  other  fled.  "At  that 
time,"  proceeds  Ellwood,  *'  and  for  a  good  while  after, 
I  had  no  regret  upon  my  mind  for  what  I  had  done. ' ' 
This  was  whilst  he  was  young,  and  when  the  forbear- 
ing principles  of  Christianity  had  little  influence  upon 
him.  But  afterwards,  when  this  influence  became 
powerful,  "  a  sort  of  horror,"  he  says,  "  seized  on  me 
when  I  considered  how  near  I  had  been  to  the  staining 
of  my  hands  with  human  blood.  And  whensoever 
afterwards  I  went  that  way,  and  indeed  as  often  since 
as  the  matter  has  come  into  my  remembrance,  my  soul 
*  "  Select  Anecdotes,  &c."  by  John  Barclay. 


CHAP  XIV.]  RIGHTS  OE  SELF-DEEENCE.  307 

has  blessed  Him  who  preserved  and  withheld  me  from 
shedding  man's  blood."* 

That  those  over  whom,  as  over  Ellwood,  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity  is  imperfect  and  weak,  should 
think  themselves  at  liberty  upon  such  occasions  to 
take  the  lives  of  their  fellow-men,  needs  to  be  no  sub- 
ject of  wonder.  Christianity,  if  we  would  rightly 
estimate  its  obligations,  must  be  felt  in  the  heart. 
They  in  whose  hearts  it  is  not  felt,  or  felt  but  little* 
cannot  be  expected  perfectly  to  know  what  its  obliga- 
tions are.  I  know  not  therefore  that  more  appropriate 
advice  can  be  given  to  him  who  contends  for  the  law- 
fulness of  taking  another  man's  life  in  order  to  save 
his  own,  than  that  he  would  first  enquire  whether  the 
influence  of  religion  is  dominant  in  his  mind.  If  it  is 
not,  let  him  suspend  his  decision  until  he  has  attained  to 
the  fulness  of  the  stature  of  a  Christian  man.  Then, 
as  he  will  be  of  that  number  who  do  the  will  of 
Heaven,  he  may  hope  to  ! '  know  of  this  doctrine 
whether  it  be  of  God." 

*  EUwood's  Life. 


ESSAY  III.* 

POLITICAL    RIGHTS    AND     OBLIGA- 
TIONS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  TRUTH,  AND  OF 
POLITICAL  RECTITUDE. 

I. — ' '  Political  Power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  It  is  pos- 
sessed by  consent  of  the  community  ' ' — Governors  Officers  of 
the  public — Transfer  of  their  rights  by  a  whole  people — The 
people  hold  the  sovereign  power — Rights  of  Governors — A 
conciliating  system. 

II. — "Political  Power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  sub- 
serves the  welfare  of  the  community" — Interference  with 
other  nations — Present  expedients  for  present  occasions — 
Proper  business  of  Governments. 

III. — "Political  Power  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  sub- 
serves the  welfare  of  the  community  by  means  which  the 
moral  law  permits ' ' — The  moral  law  alike  binding  on  nations 
and  individuals — Deviation  from  rectitude  impolitic. 

[*  This  Essay  the  author  did  not  live  to  revise,  a  circumstance 
which  will  account  for  a  want  of  complete  connection  of  the 
different  parts  of  a  subject  which  the  reader  will  sometimes 
meet  with.  There  occur  also  in  this  part  of  the  manuscript 
numerous  memoranda,  which  the  author  intended  to  make  use 
of  in  a  future  revision.  These  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
Notes,  as  the  former  refer,  not  to  any  particular  passage  but 
only  to  the  subject  of  the  chapter  or  section.  They  were 
hastily,  as  the  thought  occurred,  written  in  the  margin  or  on  a 
blank  leaf  of  the  manuscript,  and  they  are  here  introduced  at 
the  bottom  of  the  page,  in  those  parts  to  which  they  appear  to 
have  the  nearest  reference. — Ed.] 


CHAP.    I.]      PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  TRUTH,    ETC.  309 

The  fundamental  principles  which  are  deducible 
from  the  law  of  nature  and  from  Christianity,  respect- 
ing political  affairs,  appear  to  be  these  : — 

1 .  Political  Power  is  rightly  possessed  only  when  it 
is  possessed  by  consent  of  the  community  ; — 

2 .  It  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  subserves  the 
welfare  of  the  community  ; — 

3.  And  only  when  it  subserves  this  purpose,  by 
means  which  the  moral  law  permits. 


I — "POLITICAL   POWER    IS     RIGHTI.Y   POSSESSED     ONLY  WHEN 
IT  IS   POSSESSED   BY    CONSENT  OF    THE    COMMUNITY." 

Perfect  liberty  is  desirable  if  it  were  consistent  with 
the  greatest  degree  of  happiness.  But  it  is  not.  Men 
find  that,  by  giving  up  a  part  of  their  liberty,  they  are 
more  happy  than  by  retaining,  or  attempting  to  re- 
tain, the  whole.  Government,  whatever  be  its.  form, 
is  the  agent  by  which  the  i7iexpedient  portion  of 
individual  liberty  is  taken  away.  Men  institute  gov- 
ernment for  their  own  advantage,  and  because  they 
find  they  are  more  happy  with  it  than  without  it. 
This  is  the  sole  reason,  in  principle,  how  little  soever  it 
be  adverted  to  in  practice.  Governors,  therefore,  are 
the  officers  of  the  public,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word  :  not  the  slaves  of  the  public  ;  for  if  they  do  not 
incline  to  conform  to  the  public  will,  they  are  at  lib- 
erty, like  other  officers,  to  give  up  their  office.  They 
are  servants,  in  the  same  manner,  and  for  the  same 
purpose,  as  a  solicitor  is  the  servant  of  his  client,  and 
the  physician  of  his  patient.  These  are  employed  by 
the  patient  or  the  client  voluntarily  for  his  own  advan- 
tage, and  for  nothing  else.  A  nation,  (not  an  individ- 
ual, but  a  nation,'),  is  under  no  other  obligation  to  obe- 
dience, than  that  which  arises  from  the  conviction  that 
obedience   is    good     for    itself : — or   rather,    in   more 


3IO  PRINCIPLES  OF   POLITICAL  TRUTH,        [ESSAY  III. 

proper  language,  a  nation  is  under  no  obligation  to  obe- 
dience at  all.  Obedience  is  voluntary.  If  they  do  not 
think  it  proper  to  obey — that  is,  if  they  are  not  satis- 
fied with  their  officers — they  are  at  liberty  to  discon- 
tinue their  obedience,  and  to  appoint  other  officers 
instead. 

It  is  incidental  to  the  office  of  the  first  public  ser- 
vants, that  they  should  exercise  authority  over  those 
by  whom  they  are  selected  ;  and  hence  probably,  it  has 
happened  that  the  terms  ' '  public  officer, "  "  public 
servant,"  have  excited  such  strange  controversies  in 
the  world.  Men  have  not  maintained  sufficient  dis- 
crimination of  ideas.  Seeing  that  governors  are  great 
and  authoritative,  a  man  imagines  it  cannot  be  proper  to 
say  they  are  servants.  Seeing  that  it  is  necessary  and 
right  that  individuals  should  obey,  he  cannot  entertain 
the  notion  that  they  are  the  servants  of  those  whom 
they  govern.  The  truth  is,  that  governors  are  not  the 
servants  of  individuals  but  of  the  community.  They  are 
the  masters  of  individuals,,  the  servants  of  the  public  ; 
and  if  this  simple  distinction  had  been  sufficiently 
borne  in  mind,  much  perhaps  of  the  vehement  conten- 
tion upon  these  matters  had  been  avoided. 

But  the  idea  of  being  a  servant  to  the  public,  is  quite 
consistent  with  the  idea  of  exercising  authority  over 
them.  The  common  language  of  a  patient  is  founded 
upon  similar  grounds.  He  sends  for  a  physician  : — 
the  physician  comes  at  his  desire — is  paid  for  his  ser- 
vices— and  then  the  patient  says,  I  am  ordered  to  adopt 
a  regimen,  I  am  ordered  to  Italy  ;  — and  he  obeys,  not 
because  he  may  not  refuse  to  obey  if  he  chooses,  but 
because  he  confides  in  the  judgment  of  the  physician, 
and  thinks  that  it  is  more  to  his  benefit  to  be  guided  by 
the  physician's  judgment  than  by  his  own.  But  it 
will  be  said  the  physician  cannot  enforce  his  orders  upon 
the  patient  against  his  will :  neither  I  answer  can  the 


CHAP.    I.]  AND  OF   POWTlCAl,  RECTITUDE.  311 

governor  enforce  his  upon  the  public  against  theirs. 
No  doubt  governors  do  sometimes  so  enforce  them. 
What  they  do,  however,  and  what  they  rightfully  do, 
are  separate  considerations,  and  our  business  is  only 
with  the  latter. 

The  rule  that  - '  political  power  is  rightly  possessed 
only  when  it  is  possessed  by  consent  of  the  community, ' ' 
necessarily  applies  to  the  choice  of  the  person  who  is 
to  exercise  it.  No  man,  and  no  set  of  men,  rightly 
govern  unless  they  are  preferred  by  the  public  to  others. 
It  is  of  no  consequence  that  a  people  should  formally 
select  a  president  or  a  king.  They  continually  act 
upon  the  principle  without  this.  A  people  who  are 
satisfied  with  their  governor  make,  day  by  day,  the 
choice  of  which  we  speak.  They  prefer  him  to  all 
others ;  they  choose  to  be  served  by  him  rather  than 
by  any  other  ;  and  he,  therefore,  is  virtually,  though 
not  formally,  selected  by  the  public.  But,  when  we 
speak  of  the  right  of  a  particular  person  or  family  to 
govern  a  people,  we  speak,  as  of  all  other  rights,  in 
conditional  language.  The  right  consists  in  the  prefer- 
ence which  is  given  to  him  ;  and  exists  no  longer  than 
that  preference  exists.  If  any  governor  were  fully 
conscious  that  the  community  preferred  another  man 
or  another  kind  of  government,  he  ought  to  regard 
himself  in  the  light  of  an  usurper  if  he  nevertheless 
continues  to  retain  his  power.  Not  that  every  govern- 
ment ought  to  dissolve  itself,  or  every  governor  to 
abdicate  his  office,  because  there  is  a  general  but  tem- 
porary clamor  against  it.  This  is  one  thing — the 
steady  deliberate  judgment  of  the  people  is  another. 
Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  the  time  may  come  when 
governments  will  so  habitually  refer  to  the  purposes  of 
government,  and  be  regulated  by  them,  that  they  will 
not  even  wish  to  hold  the  reins  longer  than  the  people 
desire  it ;  and  that  nothing  more  will  be  needed  for  a 


312  PRINCIPLES   OF   POLITICAL  TRUTH,    .     [KSSAY  III. 

quiet  alteration  than  that  the  public  judgment  should 
be  quietly  expressed? 

Political  revolutions  are  not  often  favorable  to  the 
accurate  illustration  of  political  truth  ;  because,  such  is 
the  moral  condition  of  mankind,  that  they  have  seldom 
acted  in  conformity  with  it.  Revolutions  have  com- 
monly been  the  effect  of  the  triumph  of  a  party,  or  of 
the  successes  of  physical  power.  Yet,  if  the  illustra- 
tion of  these  principles  has  not  been  accurate,  the 
general  position  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  select 
their  own  rulers  has  often  been  illustrated.  In  England, 
when  James  II.  left  the  throne,  the  people  filled  it  with* 
another  person,  whose  real  title  consisted  in  the  choice 
of  the  people.  James  continued  to  talk  of  his  rights  to 
the  crown  ;  but  if  William  was  preferred  by  the  public, 
James  was,  what  his  son  was  afterwards  called,  a  pre- 
tender. The  nonjurors  appear  to  have  acted  upon 
erroneous  principles,  (except  indeed  on  the  score  of 
former  oaths  to  James  ;  which,  however,  ought  never 
to  have  been  taken. )  If  we  acquit  them  of  motives  of 
party,  they  will  appear  to  have  entertained  some 
notions  of  the  rights  of  governors  independently  of  the 
wishes  of  the  people.  At  William's  death,  the  nation 
preferred  James's  daughter  to  his  son  ;  thus  again 
elevating  their  judgments  above  all  considerations  of 
what  the  pretender  called  his  rights.  Anne  had  then 
a  right  to  the  throne,  and  her  brother  had  not.  At 
the  death  of  Anne,  or  rather  in  contemplation  of  her 
death,  the  public  had  again  to  select  their  governor  ; 
and  they  chose,  not  the  immediate  representative  of  the 
old  family,  but  the  elector  of  Hanover  :  and  it  is  in 
virtue  of  the  same  choice,  tacitly  expressed  at  the 
present  hour,  that  the  heir  of  the  elector  now  fills  the 
throne. 

[The  habitual  consciousness  on  the  part  of  a  legisla- 
ture, that  its  authority  is  possessed  in  order  to  make  it 


CHAP.    I.]  AND   OF  POUTlCAI,  RECTITUDE.  313 

an  efficient  guardian  and  promoter  of  the  general  wel- 
fare and  the  general  satisfaction,  would  induce  a  more 
mild  and  conciliating  system  of  internal  policy  than 
that  which  frequently  obtains.  Whether  it  has  arisen 
from  habit  resulting  from  the  violent  and  imperious 
character  of  international  policy,  or  from  that  tendency 
to  unkindness  and  overbearing  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  power  induces,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  meas- 
ures of  government  are  frequently  adopted  and 
conducted  with  such  a  high  hand  as  impairs  the  satis- 
faction of  the  governed,  and  diminishes,  by  example, 
that  considerate  attention  to  the  claims  of  others,  upon 
which  much  of  the  harmony,  and  therefore  the  happi- 
ness of  society  consists.  Governments  are  too  much 
afraid  of  conciliation.  They  too  habitually  suppose  that 
mildness  or  concession  indicates  want  of  courage  or 
want  of  power — that  it  invites  unreasonable  demands, 
and  encourages  encroachment  and  violence  on  the  part 
of  the  governed.  Man  is  not  so  intractable  a  being,  or 
so  insensible  of  the  influence  of  candor  and  justice.  In 
private  life,  he  does  not  the  most  easily  guide  the  con- 
duct of  his  neighbors,  who  assumes  an  imperious,  but 
he  who  assumes  a  temperate  and  mild  demeanor.  The 
best  mode  of  governing,  and  the  most  powerftd  mode 
too,  is  to  recommend  state  measures  to  the  judgment 
and  the  affections  of  a  people.  If  this  had  been  suffi- 
ciently done  in  periods  of  tranquillity,  some  of  those 
conflicts  which  have  arisen  between  governments  and 
the  people  had  doubtless  been  prevented ;  and 
governments  had  been  spared  the  mortification  of 
conceding  that  to  violence  which  they  refused  to  con- 
cede in  periods  of  quiet.  We  should  not  wait  for  times 
of  agitation  to  do  that  which  Fox  advised  even  at  such 
a  time,  because  at  other  periods  it  may  be  done  with 
greater  advantage  and  with  a  better  grace.  "It  may 
be  asked,"  said  Fox,  "what  I  would  propose  to  do  in 


314  PRINCIPLES   OF  POLITICAL  TRUTH,        [ESSAY  III. 

times  of  agitation  like  the  present  ?  I  will  answer 
openly  : — If  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  Dissenters  to 
discontent,  what  should  I  do  ?  I  would  instantly  repeal 
the  corporation  and  test  acts,  and  take  from  them 
thereby  all  cause  of  complaint.  If  there  were  any 
persons  tinctured  with  a  republican  spirit,  I  would  en- 
deavor to  amend  the  representation  of  the  Commons, 
and  to  prove  that  the  House  of  Commons,  though  not 
chosen  by  all,  should  have  no  other  interest  than  to 
prove  itself  the  representative  of  all.  If  men  were  dis- 
satisfied on  account  of  disabilities  or  exemptions,  &c. , 
I  would  repeal  the  penal  statutes,  which  are  a  disgrace  to 
our  law-books.  If  there  were  other  complaints  of 
grievance,  I  would  redress  them  where  they  were  really 
proved  ;  but,  above  all,  I  would  consta?itlyy  cheerfully, 
patiently  listen  ;  I  would  make  it  known,  that  if  any 
man  felt,  or  thought  he  felt  a  grievance,  he  might  come 
freely  to  the  bar  of  this  House  and  bring  his  proofs. 
And  it  should  be  made  manifest  to  all  the  world  that 
where  they  did  exist  they  should  be  redressed  ;  where 
not,  it  should  be  made  manifest."* 

We  need  not  consider  the  particular  examples  and 
measures  which  the  statesman  instanced.  The  temper 
and  spirit  is  the  thing.  A  government  should  do  that 
of  which  every  person  would  see  the  propriety  in  a 
private  man  ;  if  misconduct  was  charged  upon  him, 
show  that  the  charge  was  unfounded  ;  or,  being  sub- 
stantiated, amend  his  conduct.] 


II. — ' *  POLITICAL   POWER  IS  RIGHTLY  EXERCISED  ONLY  WHEN 
IT  SUBSERVES  THE  WELFARE  OF  THE  COMMUNITY." 

This  proposition  is  consequent  of  the  truth  of  the 
last.     The  community,  which  has  the   right  to  with- 
hold power,  delegates  it,  of  course,  for  its  own  advan- 
*  Fell's  Memoirs  of  the  Public  Life  of  C.  J.  Fox. 


CHAP.    I.]  AND  OF  POUTlCAI,  RECTITUDE.  315 

tage.  If  in  any  case  its  advantage  is  not  consulted, 
then  the  object  for  which  it  was  delegated  is  frustrated  ; 
or,  in  simple  words,  the  measure  which  does  not  pro- 
mote the  public  welfare  is  not  right.  It  matters  noth- 
ing whether  the  community  have  delegated  specifically 
so  much  power  for  such  and  such  purposes  ;  the  power, 
being  possessed,  entails  the  obligation.  Whether  a 
sovereign  derives  absolute  authority  by  inheritance,  or 
whether  a  president  is  entrusted  with  limited  authority 
for  a  year,  the  principles  of  their  duty  are  the  same. 
The  obligation  to  employ  it  only  for  the  public  good, 
is  just  as  real  and  just  as  great  in  one  case  as  in  the 
other.  The  Russian  and  the  Turk  have  the  same  right 
to  require  that  the  power  of  their  rulers  shall  be  so  em- 
ployed as  the  Englishman  or  American.  They  may 
not  be  able  to  assert  this  right,  but  that  does  not 
affect  its  existence  nor  the  ruler's  duty,  nor  his  re- 
sponsibility to  that  Almighty  Being  before  whom  he 
must  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship.  These 
reasonings,  if  they  needed  confirmation  derive  it  from 
the  fact  that  the  Deity  imperatively  requires  us,  ac- 
cording to  our  opportunities,  to  do  good  to  man. 

Governments  commonly  trouble  themselves  unneces- 
sarily and  too  much  with  the  politics  of  other  nations. 
A  prince  should  turn  his  back  towards  other  countries 
and  his  face  towards  his  own — just  as  the  proper  place 
of  a  landholder  is  upon  his  own  estates  and  not  upon 
his  neighbor's.  If  governments  were  wise,  it  would 
ere  long  be  found  that  a  great  portion  of  the  endless 
and  wearisome  succession  of  treaties  and  remonstrances, 
and  embassies,  and  alliances,  and  memorials,  and  sub- 
sidies, might  be  dispensed  with,  with  so  little  incon- 
venience and  so  much  benefit,  that  the  world  would 
wonder  to  think  to  what  futile  ends  they  had  been 
busying  and  how  needlessly  they  had  been  injuring 
themselves. 


3l6  PRINCIPLES   OP   POUTlCAI,  TRUTH,         [ESSAY   III. 

No  doubt,  the  immoral  and  irrational  system  of  in- 
ternational politics  which  generally  obtains,  makes  the 
path  of  one  government  more  difficult  than  it  would 
otherwise  be  ;  and  yet  it  is  probable  that  the  most  effi- 
cacious way  of  inducing  another  government  to  attend 
to  its  proper  business,  would  be  to  attend  to  our  own. 
It  is  not  sufficiently  considered,  nor  indeed  is  it  suffi- 
ciently known,  how  powerful  is  the  influence  of  up- 
rightness and  candor  in  conciliating  the  good  opinion 
and  the  good  offices  of  other  men.  Overreaching  and 
chicanery  in  one  person,  induce  overreaching  and 
chicanery  in  another.  Men  distrust  those  whom  they 
perceive  to  be  unworthy  of  confidence.  Real  integrity 
is  not  without  its  voucher  in  the  hearts  of  others  ;  and 
they  who  maintain  it  are  treated  with  confidence,  be- 
cause it  is  seen  that  confidence  can  be  safely  reposed. 
Besides,  he  who  busies  himself  with  the  politics  of 
foreign  countries,  like  the  busybodies  in  a  petty  com- 
munity, does  not  fail  to  offend.  In  the  last  century, 
our  own  country  was  so  much  of  a  busybody,  and  had 
involved  itself  in  such  a  multitude  of  treaties  and 
alliances,  that  it  was  found,  I  believe,  quite  impossible 
to  fulfil  one,  without,  by  that  very  act,  violating 
another.  This,  of  course,  would  offend.  In  private 
life,  that  man  passes  through  the  world  with  the  least 
annoyance  and  the  greatest  satisfaction,  who  confines 
his  attention  to  its  proper  business,  that  is,  generally, 
to  his  own  :  and  who  can  tell  why  the  experience  of 
nations  should  in  this  case  be  different  from  that  of 
private  men?  In  a  rectified  state  of  international 
affairs,  half  a  dozen  princes  on  a  continent  would  have 
little  more  occasion  to  meddle  with  one  another  than 
half  a  dozen  neighbors  in  a  street. 

But  indeed,  communities  frequently  contribute  to 
their  own  injury.  If  governors  are  ambitious,  or  resent- 
ful,   or   proud,    so,   often,  are   the   people ; — and   the 


CHAP.    I.]  AND  OF   POLITICAL  RKCTlTUDE.  3I7    . 

public  good  has  often  been  sacrificed  by  the  public, 
with  astonishing  preposterousness,  to  jealousy  or  vexa- 
tion. Some  merchants  are  angry  at  the  loss  of  a 
branch  of  trade  ;  they  urge  the  government  to  inter- 
fere ;  memorials  and  remonstrances  follow  to  the  state 
of  whom  thay  complain  ; — and  so,  by  that  process  of 
exasperation  which  is  quite  natural  when  people  think 
that  high  language  and  a  high  attitude  is  politic,  the 
nations  soon  begin  to  fight.  The  merchants  applaud 
the  spirit  of  their  rulers,  while  in  one  year  they  lose 
more  by  the  war  than  they  would  have  lost  by  the 
want  of  the  trade  for  twenty  ;  and  before  peace  returns, 
the  nation  has  lost  more  than  it  would  have  lost  by  the 
continuance  of  the  evil  for  twenty  centuries.  Peace  at 
length  arrives,  and  the  government  begins  to  devise 
means  of  repairing  the  mischiefs  of  the  war.  Both 
government  and  people  reflect  very  complacently  on 
the  wisdom  of  their  measures — forgetting  that  their  con- 
duct is  only  that  of  a  man  who  wantonly  fractures  his 
own  leg  with  a  club,  and  then  boasts  to  his  neighbors 
how  dexterously  he  limps  to  a  surgeon. 

We  know  what  a  sickening  detail  the  history  of 
Europe  is  ;  and  it  is  obvious  to  remark,  that  the  sys- 
tem which  has  given  rise  to  such  a  history  must  be 
vicious  and  mistaken  in  its  fundamental  principles. 
The  same  class  of  history  will  continue  to  after  genera- 
tions unless  these  principles  are  changed — unless 
philosophy  and  Christianity  obtain  a  greater  influence 
in  the*  practice  of  government ;  unless,  in  a  word,  gov- 
ernments are  content  to  do  their  proper  business,  and 
to  leave  that  which  is  not  their  business  undone. 

When  such  principles  are  acted  upon,  we  may 
reasonably  expect  a  rapid  advancement  in  the  whole 
condition  of  the  world.  Domestic  measures  which  are 
now  postponed  to  the  more  stirring  occupations  of 
legislators,  will  be  found  to  be  of  incomparably  greater 


3l8  PRINCIPLES  OF   POLITICAL  TRUTH,         [ESSAY  III. 

importance  than  they.  A  wise  code  of  criminal  law, 
will  be  found  to  be  of  more  consequence  and  interest 
than  the  acquisition  of  a  million,  square  miles  of  terri- 
tory : — a  judicious  encouragement  of  general  education, 
will  be  of  more  value  than  all  the  ' '  glory  ' '  that  has 
been  acquired  from  the  days  of  Alfred  till  now.  Of 
moral  legislation,  however,  it  will  be  our  after  business 
to  speak  ;  meanwhile  the  lover  of  mankind  has  some 
reason  for  gratulation,  in  perceiving  indications  that 
governments  will  hereafter  direct  their  attention  more 
to  the  objects  for  which  they  are  invested  with  power. 
The  statesman  who  promotes  this  improvement  will  be 
what  many  statesman  have  been  called — a  great  man. 
That  government  only  is  great  which  promotes  the 
prosperity  of  its  own  people  ;  and  that  people  only  are 
prosperous,  who  are  wise  and  happy. 


III. — ' '  POLITICAL  POWER  IS  RIGHTLY  EXERCISED  ONLY  WHEN 
IT  SUBSERVES  THE  WELFARE  OF  THE  COMMUNITY  BY  MEANS 
WHICH  THE  MORAL  LAW  PERMITS. ' ' 

It  has  been  said  by  a  Christian  writer,  that  ' '  the 
science  of  politics  is  but  a  particular  application  of  that 
of  morals;"  and  it  has  been  said  by  a  writer  who 
rejected  Chistianity,  that  "  the  morality  that  ought  to 
govern  the  conduct  of  individuals  and  of  nations,  is  in 
all  cases  the  same. ' '  If  there  be  truth  in  the  principles 
which  are  advanced  in  the  first  of  these  essays,  these 
propositions  are  indisputably  true.  It  is  the  chief  pur- 
pose of  the  present  work  to  enforce  the  supremacy  of  the 
moral  law  ;  and  to  this  supremacy  there  is  no  exception 
in  the  case  of  nations.  In  the  conduct  of  nations  this 
supremacy  is  practically  denied,  although,  perhaps, 
few  of  those  who  make  it  subservient  to  other  purposes 
would  deny  it  in  terms.  With  their  lips  they  honor 
the  doctrine,  but  in  their  works  they  deny  it.     Such 


CHAP.    I.]  AND   OF  POWTICAI,   RECTlTUDf!1 319 

procedures  must  be  expected  to  produce  much  self- 
contradiction,  much  vacillation  between  truth  and  the 
wish  to  disregard  it,  much  vagueness  of  notions  respect- 
ing political  rectitude,  and  much  casuistry  to  educe 
something  like  a  justification  of  what  cannot  be  justi- 
fied. Iyet  the  reader  observe  an  illustration  : — A  moral 
philosopher  says,  "The  Christian  principles  of  love, 
and  forbearance,  and  kindness,  strictly  as  they  are  to 
be  observed  between  man  and  man,  are  to  be  observed 
with  precisely  the  same  strictness  between  nation  and 
nation."  This  is  an  unqualified  assertion  of  the  truth. 
But  the  writer  thinks  it  would  carry  him  too  far,  and 
so  he  makes  exceptions.  ' ■  In  reducing  to  practice  the 
Christian  principles  of  forbearance,  &c,  it  will  not  be 
always  feasible,  nor  always  safe,  to  proceed  to  the  same 
extent  as  in  acting  towards  an  individual."  L,et  the 
reader  exercise  his  skill  in  casuistry,  by  showing  the 
difference  between  conforming  to  laws  with  '  J  precise 
strictness, ' '  and  conforming  to  them  in  their  ' '  full 
extent." — Thus  far  Christianity  and  expediency  are 
proposed  as  our  joint  governors. — We  must  observe  the 
moral  law,  but  still  we  must  regulate  our  observance 
of  it  by  considerations  of  what  is  feasible  and  safe. 
Presently  afterwards,  however,  Christianity  is  quite 
dethroned,  and  we  are  to  observe  its  laws  only  "so  far 
as  national  ability  and  national  security  will  permit."* 
— So  that  our  rule  of  political  conduct  stands  at  length 
thus  :  obey  Christianity  with  precise  strictness — when  it 
suits  your  interests. 

The  reasoning  by  which  such  doctrines  are  supported, 
is  such  as  it  might  be  expected  to  be.  We  are  told  of 
the  ' '  caution  requisite  in  affairs  of  such  magnitude — 
the  great  uncertainty  of  the  future  conduct  of  the  other 
nation  " — and  of  "  patriotism." — So  that,  because  the 
affairs  are  of  great  magnitude,  the  laws  of  the  Deity 

*  Gisborne's  Moral  Philosophy. 


320  PRINCIPLES  OP   POIjTlCAI,  TRUTH,         [pSSAY  III. 

are  not  to  be  observed  !  It  is  all  very  well,  it  seems,  to 
observe  them  in  little  matters,  but  for  our  more  im- 
portant concerns  we  want  rules  commensurate  with 
their  dignity — we  cannot  then  be  bound  by  the  laws  of 
God  !  The  next  reason  is,  that  we  cannot  foresee  ' '  the 
future  conduct  "  of  a  nation. — Neither  can  we  that  of 
an  individual.  Besides  this,  inability  to  foresee  incul- 
cates the  very  lesson  that  we  ought  to  observe  the  laws 
of  Him  who  can  foresee.  It  is  a  strange  thing  to  urge 
the  limitation  of  our  powers  of  judgment,  as  a  reason 
for  substituting  it  for  the  judgment  of  Him  whose 
powers  are  perfect.  Then  ' '  patriotism  "  is  a  reason  : 
and  we  are  to  be  patriotic  to  our  country  at  the  expense 
of  treason  to  our  religion  ! 

The  principles  upon  which  these  reasonings  are 
founded,  lead  to  their  legitimate  results  :  "In  war  and 
negotiation,"  says  Adam  Smith,  "the  laws  of  justice 
are  very  seldom  observed.  Truth  and  fair  dealing  are 
almost  totally  disregarded.  Treaties  are  violated,  and 
the  violation,  if  some  advantage  is  gained  by  it,  sheds 
scarce  any  dishonor  upon  the  violator.  The  ambassador 
who  dupes  the  minister  of  a  foreign  nation,  is  admired 
and  applauded.  The  just  man,  the  man  who  in  all 
private  transactions  would  be  the  most  beloved  and  the 
most  esteemed,  in  those  public  transactions  is  regarded 
as  a  fool  and  an  idiot,  who  does  not  understand  his 
business ;  and  he  incurs  always  the  contempt,  and 
sometimes  even  the  detestation,  of  his  fellow  citizens."* 

Now,  against  all  such  principles — against  all  endeav- 
ors to  defend  the  rejection  of  the  moral  law  in  political 
affairs,  we  would  with  all  emphasis  protest.  The 
reader  sees  that  it  is  absurd  : — can  he  need  to  be  con- 
vinced that  it  is  unchristian  ?  Christianity  is  of  para- 
mount authority,  or  another  authority  is  superior. 
He     who     holds     another     authority     as     superior, 

*  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments. 


CHAP.    I.]  AND  OE  POUTlCAt  RECTITUDE.  $21 

rejects  Christianity  ;  and  the  fair  and  candid  step 
woul  be  avowedly  to  reject  it.  He  should  say,  in  dis- 
tinct terms-— Christianity  throws  some  light  on  political 
principles  ;  but  its  laws  are  to  be  held  subservient; to 
our  interests.  This  were  far  more  satisfactory  than 
the  trimming  system,  the  perpetual  vacillation  of 
obedience  to  two  masters,  and  the  perpetual  endeavor 
to  do  that  which  never  can  be  done — serve  both. 

Jesus  Christ  legislated  for  man — not  for  individuals 
only,  not  for  families  only,  not  for  Christian  churches 
only,  but  for  man  in  all  his  relationships  and  in  all 
his  circumstances.  He  legislated  for  states.  In  his 
moral  law  we  discover  no  indications  that  states  wTere 
exempted  from  its  application,  or  that  any  rule  which 
bound  social  did  not  bind  political  communities.  If 
any  exemption  were  designed,  the  onus  probandi  rests 
upon  those  who  assert  it :  unless  they  can  show  that  the 
Christian  precepts  are  not  intended  to  apply  to  nations, 
the  conclusion  must  be  admitted  that  they  are.  But  in 
reality,  to  except  nations  from  the  obligations  is  impos- 
sible ;  for  nations  are  composed  of  individuals,  and  if 
no  individual  may  reject  the  Christian  morality,  a 
nation  may  not.  Unless,  indeed,  it  can  be  shown  that 
when  you  are  an  agent  for  others  you  may  do  what 
neither  yourself  nor  any  of-  them  might  do  separately 
—a  proposition  of  which  certainly  the  proof  must  be 
required  to  be  very  clear  and  strong. 

But  the  truth  is,  that  those  who  justify  a  suspension 
of  Christian  morality  in  political  affairs,  are  often  un- 
willing to  reason  distinctly  and  candidly  upon  the  sub- 
ject. They  satisfy  themselves  with  a  jest,  or  a  sneer, 
or  a  shrug  ;  being  unwilling  either  to  contemn  morality 
in  politics,  or  to  practise  it :  and  it  is  to  little  purpose  to 
offer  arguments  to  him  who  does  not  need  conviction, 
but  virtue. 

Expediency  is  the  rock  upon  which  we  split — upon 


322  PRINCIPLES  OE  POUflCAI,  TRUTH,        [ESSAY  III. 

which,  strange  as  it  appears,  not  only  our  principles 
but  our  interests  suffer  continual  shipwreck.  It  has 
been  upon  expediency  that  European  politics  have  so 
long  been  founded,  with  such  lamentably  inexpedient 
effects.  We  consult  our  interests  so  anxiously  that  we 
ruin  them.  But  we  consult  them  blindly  :  we  do  not 
know  our  interests,  nor  shall  we  ever  know  them 
whilst  we  continue  to  imagine  that  we  know  them 
better  than  he  who  legislated  for  the  world.  Here  is 
the  perpetual  folly  as  well  as  the  perpetual  crime. 
Esteeming  ourselves  wise,  we  have,  emphatically,  been 
fools — of  which  no  other  evidence  is  necessary  than 
the  present  political  condition  of  the  Christian  world. 
If  ever  it  was  true  of  any  human  being,  that  by  his 
deviations  from  rectitude  he  had  provided  scourges  for 
himself,  it  is  true  at  this  hour  of  every  nation  in 
Europe. 

Iyet  us  attend  to  this  declaration  of  a  man  who, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  value  of  his  general  politics, 
was  certainly  a  great  statesman  here  :  ' '  I  am  one  of 
those  who  firmly  believe,  as  much  indeed  as  a  man  can 
believe  anything,  that  the  greatest  resource  a  nation 
can  possess,  the  surest  principle  of  power,  is  strict  at- 
tention to  the  principles  of  justice.  I  firmly  believe 
that  the  common  proverb  of  honesty  being  the  best 
policy,  is  as  applicable  to  nations  as  to  individuals."— 
11  In  all  interference  with  foreign  nations  justice  is  the 
best  foundation  of  policy,  and  moderation  is  the  surest 
pledge  of  peace." — "If  therefore  we  have  been  de- 
ficient in  justice  towards  other  states,  we  have  been 
deficient  in  wisdom."  * 

Here,  then,  is  the  great  truth  for  which  we  would 
contend — to  be  unjust  is  to  be  unwise.  And  since 
justice  is  not  imposed  upon  nations  more  really  than 
other  branches  of  the  moral  law,  the  universal  maxim 

*  Fell's  Memoirs  of  the  Public  lyife  of  C.   J.  Fox. 


CHAP.    I.]  AND  OF   POLITICAL   RECTITUDE.  323 

is  equally  true—  to  deviate  from  purity  of  rectitude  is 
impolitic  as  well  as  wrong.  When  will  this  truth  be 
learnt  and  be  acted  upon  ?  When  shall  we  cast  away 
the  contrivances  of  a  low  and  unworthy  policy  and 
dare  the  venture  of  the  consequences  of  virtue? 
When  shall  we,  in  political  affairs,  exercise  a  little  of 
that  confidence  in  the  knowledge  and  protection  of 
God,  which  we  are  ready  to  admire  in  individual  life  ? 
— Not  that  it  is  to  be  assumed  as  certain  that  such 
fidelity  would  cost  nothing.  Christianity  makes  no 
such  promise.  But  whatever  it  might  cost  it  would  be 
worth  the  purchase.  And  neither  reason  nor  ex- 
perience allows  the  doubt  that  a  faithful  adherence  to 
the  moral  law  would  more  effectually  serve  national 
interests,  than  they  have  ever  yet  been  served  by  the 
utmost  sagacity  whilst  violating  that  law. 

The  contrivances  of  expediency  have  become  so 
habitual  to  measures  of  state,  that  it  may  probably  be 
thought  the  dreamings  of  a  visionary  to  suppose  it  pos- 
sible that  they  should  be  substituted  by  purity  of  rec- 
titude. And  yet  I  believe  it  will  eventually  be  done — 
not  perhaps  by  the  resolution  of  a  few  cabinets — it  is 
not  from  them  that  reformation  is  to  be  expected — but 
by  the  gradual  advance  of  sound  principles  upon  the 
minds  of  men — principles  which  will  assume  more  and 
more  their  rightful  influence  in  the  world,  until  at 
length  the  low  contrivances  of  a  fluctuating  and  im- 
moral policy  will  be  substituted  by  firm,  and  con- 
sistent, and  invariable  integrity. 


324  CIVIL  UBERTY.  [ESSAY   III. 

CHAPTER  II. 

CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

Loss  of  Liberty — War — Useless  laws. 

Of  personal  liberty  we  say  nothing,  because  its  full 
possession  is  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  society. 
All  government  supposes  the  relinquishment  of  a  por- 
tion of  personal  liberty. 

Civil  liberty  may,  however,  be  fully  enjoyed.  It  is 
enjoyed,  where  the  principles  of  political  truth  and 
rectitude  are  applied  in  practice,  because  there  the 
people  are  deprived  of  that  portion  only  of  liberty  which 
it  would  be  pernicious  to  themselves  to  possess.  If 
political  power  is  possessed  by  consent  of  the  com- 
munity ;  if  it  is  exercised  only  for  their  good  ;  and  if 
this  welfare  is  consulted  by  Christian  means,  the  people 
are  free.  No  man  can  divine  the  particular  enjoyments 
or  exemptions  which  constitute  civil  liberty,  because 
they  are  contingent  upon  the  circumstances  of  the 
respective  nations.  A  degree  of  restraint  may  be  neces- 
sary for  the  general  welfare  of  one  community,  which 
would  be  wholly  unnecessary  in  another.  Yet  the  first 
would  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  their  want  of  civil 
liberty.  The  complaint,  if  any  be  made,  should  be  of 
the  evils  which  make  the  restraint  necessary.  The 
single  question  is,  whether  any  given  degree  of 
restraint  is  necessary  or  not.  If  it  is,  though  the 
restraint  may  be  painful,  the  civil  -  liberty  of  the  com- 
munity may  be  said  to  be  complete.  It  is  useless  to 
say  that  it  is  less  complete  than  that  of  another  nation  ; 
for  complete  civil  liberty  is  a  relative  and  not  a  positive 
enjoyment.  Were  it  otherwise,  no  people  enjoy,  or 
are  likely  for  ages  to  enjoy  full  civil  liberty  ;  because 
none  enjoy  so  much  that  they  could  not,  in  a  more  vir- 
tuous state  of  mankind,  enjoy  more.      "It  is  not  the 


CHAP.    II.]  CIVII,   LIBERTY.  325 

rigor,  but  the  inexpediency  of  laws  and  acts  of  author- 
ity, which  makes  them  tyrannical."* 

Civil  liberty  (so  far  as  its  present  enjoyment  goes) 
does  not  necessarily  depend  upon  forms  of  government. 
All  communities  enjoy  it  who  are  properly  governed. 
It  may  be  enjoyed  under  an  absolute  monarch  ;  as  we 
know  it  may  not  be  enjoyed  under  a  republic.  Actual, 
existing  liberty,  depends  upon  the  actual,  existing 
administration. 

One  great  cause  of  diminutions  of  civil  liberty  is 
war,  and  if  no  other  motive  induced  a  people  jealously 
to  scrutinize  the  grounds  of  a  war,  this  might  be  suffi- 
cient. The  increased  loss  of  personal  freedom  to  a 
military  man  is  manifest ; — and  it  is  considerable  to 
other  men.  The  man  who  now  pays  twenty  pounds  a 
year  in  taxes,  would  probably  have  paid  but  two  if 
there  had  been  no  war  during  the  past  century.  If  he 
now  gets  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  by  his 
exertions,  he  is  obliged  to  labor  six  weeks  out  of  the 
fifty-two,  to  pay  the  taxes  which  war  has  entailed. 
That  is  to  say,  he  is  compelled  to  work  two  hours  every 
day  longer  than  he  himself  wishes,  or  than  is  needful 
for  his  support.  This  is  a  material  deduction  from  per- 
sonal liberty,  and  a  man  would  feel  it  as  such,  if  the 
coercion  were  directly  applied — if  an  officer  came  to  his 
house  every  afternoon  at  four  o'clock,  when  he  had 
finished  his  business,  and  obliged  him,  under  penalty 
of  a  distraint,  to  work  till  six.  It  is  some  loss  of 
liberty,  again,  to  a  man  to  be  unable  to  open  as  many 
windows  in  his  house  as  he  pleases — -or  to  be  forbidden 
to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  a  debt  without  going  to 
the  next  town  for  a  stamp — or  to  be  obliged  to  ride  in 
an  uneasy  carriage  unless  he  will  pay  for  springs.  It 
were  to  no  purpose  to  say  he  may  pay  for  windows  and 
springs  if  he  will,  and  if  he  can. — A  slave  may,  by  the 

*  Paley  :  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  p.  3,  b.  6,  c.  5. 


326  CIVII.   LIBERTY.  [ESSAY   III. 

same  reasoning,  be  shown  to  be  free  :  because,  if  he  will 
and  if  he  can,  he  may  purchase  his  freedom.  There 
is  a  loss  of  liberty  in  being  obliged  to  submit  to  the  alter- 
native ;  and  we  should  feel  it  as  a  loss  if  such  things 
were  not  habitual,  and  if  we  had  not  receded  so  con- 
siderably from  the  liberty  of  nature. 

Now,  indeed,  that  war  has  created  a  large  public 
debt,  it  is  necessary  to  the  general  good  that  its  inter- 
est should  be  paid  ;  and  in  this  view  a  man's  civil 
liberty  is  not  encroached  upon,  though  his  personal 
liberty  is  diminished.  The  public  welfare  is  consulted 
by  the  diminution.  I  may  deplore  the  cause  without 
complaining  of  the  law.  It  may,  upon  emergency,  be 
for  the  public  good  to  suspend  the  habeas  corpus  act. 
I  should  lament  that  such  a  state  of  things  existed,  but 
I  should  not  complain  that  civil  liberty  was  invaded. 
The  lesson  which  such  considerations  teach,  is,  jealous 
watchfulness  against  wars  for  the  future. 

' '  A  law  being  found  to  produce  no  sensible  good 
effects,  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  repealing  it."*  It  is 
not,  therefore,  sufficient  to  ask  in  reply,  what  harm 
does  the  law  occasion  ?  for  you  must  prove  that  it  does 
good  :  because  all  laws  which  do  no  good,  do  harm. 
They  encroach  upon  or  restrain  the  liberty  of  the  com- 
munity, without  that  reason  which  only  can  make  the 
deduction  of  any  portion  of  liberty  right — the  public 
good. 

*  Paley  :  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  p.  3,  b.  6,  c.  5. 


CHAP.    III.]  CIVII,    OBEDIENCE.  327 

CHAPTER  III. 

CIVIL  OBEDIENCE. 

Expediency  of  Obedience — Obligations  to  Obedience — Extent 
of  the  Duty — Resistance  to  the  Civil  Power — Obedience  may 
be  withdrawn — King  James — America — Non-compliance — In- 
terference of  the  Magistrate. 

Submission  to  government  is  involved  in  the  very 
idea  of  the  institution.  None  can  govern,  if  none  sub- 
mit :  and  hence  is  derived  the  duty  of  submission,  so 
far  as  it  is  independent  of  Christianity.  Government 
being  necessary  to  the  good  of  society,  submission  is 
necessary  also,  and  therefore  it  is  right. 

This  duty  is  enforced  with  great  distinctness  by 
Christianity — "  Be  subject  to  principalities  and  pow- 
ers."— "  Obey  magistrates." — ''Submit  to  every  ordi- 
nance of  man." — The  great  question,  therefore,  is, 
whether  the  duty  be  absolute  and  unconditional ;  and 
if  not,  what  are  its  limits,  and  how  are  they  to  be 
ascertained  ? 

The  law  of  nature  proposes  few  motives  to  obedience 
except  those  which  are  dictated  by  expediency.  The 
object  of  instituting  government  being  the  good  of  the 
governed,  any  means  of  attaining  that  object  is,  in  the 
view  of  natural  reason,  right.  So  that,  if  in  any  case 
a  government  does  not  effect  its  proper  objects,  it  may 
not  only  be  exchanged,  but  exchanged  by  any  means 
which  will  tend  on  the  whole  to  the  public  good.  Re- 
sistance— arms — civil  war — every  act  is,  in  the  view  of 
natural  reason,  lawful  if  it  is  useful.  But  although 
good  government  is  the  right  of  the  people,  it  is,  never- 
theless, not  sufficient  to  release  a  subject  from  the 
obligation  of  obedience,  that  a  government  adopts  some 
measures  which  he  thinks  are  not  conducive  to  the 
general  good.  A  wise  pagan  would  not  limit  his  obe- 
dience to  those  measures  in  which  a  government  acted 


328  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY   III. 

expediently  ;  because  it  is  often  better  for  the  com- 
munity that  some  acts  of  misgovern ment  should  be 
borne,  than  that  the  general  system  of  obedience  should 
be  violated.  It  is,  as  a  general  rule,  more  necessary  to 
the  welfare  of  a  people  that  governments  should  be 
regularly  obeyed,  than  that  each  of  their  measures 
should  be  good  and  right.  In  practice,  therefore,  even 
considerations  of  utility  are  sufficient,  generally,  to 
oblige  us  to  submit  to  the  civil  power. 

When  we  turn  from  the  law  of  nature  to  Christianity ', 
we  find,  as  we  are  wont,  that  the  moral  cord  is  tight- 
ened, and  that  not  every  means  of  opposing  govern- 
ments for  the  public  good  is  permitted  to  us.  The 
consideration  of  what  modes  of  opposition  Christianity 
allows,  and  w7hat  it  forbids,  is  of  great  interest  and  im- 
portance. 

"  L,et  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  powers. 
For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God  :  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever,  therefore,  resisteth 
the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God.  For  rulers 
are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil.  He  is 
the  minister  of  God  to  thee  for  good — a  revenger,  to 
execute  wrath  upon  him  that  doath  evil.  Wherefore, 
ye  must  needs  be  subject,  not  only  for  wrath,  but  also 
for  conscience  sake."* — Upon  this  often  cited  and  often 
canvassed  passage,  three  things  are  to  be  observed  : — 

i .  That  it  asserts  the  general  duty  of  civil  obedience, 
because  government  is  an  institution  sanctioned  by  the 
Deity. 

2.  That  it  asserts  this  duty  under  the  supposition  that 
the  governor  is  a  minister  of  God  for  good. 

3.  That  it  gives  but  little  other  information  respect- 
ing the  extent  of  the  duty  of  obedience. 

I.  The  obligation  to  obedience  is  not  founded,  there- 
fore,   simply   upon   expediency,    but   upon   the   more 
*  Rom.  xiii.  1  to  5. 


CHAP.    III.]  CIVIL  OBEDIENCE.  329 

satisfactory  and  certain  ground,  the  expressed  will  of 
God.  And  here  the  superiority  of  this  motive  over 
that  of  fear  of  the  magistrate's  power,  is  manifest.  We 
are  to  be  subject,  not  only  for  wrath,  but  for  con- 
science' sake — not  only  out  of  fear  of  man,  but  out  of 
fidelity  to  God.  This  motive,  where  it  operates,  is 
likely,  as  was  observed  in  the  first  essay,  to  produce 
much  more  consistent  and  conscientious  obedience  than 
that  of  expediency  or  fear. 

II.  The  duty  is  inculcated  under  the  supposition 
that  the  governor  is  a  minister  for  good.  It  is  upon 
this  supposition  that  the  apostle  proceeds  :  '  'for  rulers 
are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil ; ' ' 
which  is  tantamount  to  saying,  that  if  they  be  not  a 
terror  to  evil  works  but  to  good,  the  duty  of  obedience 
is  altered.  "  The  power  that  is  of  God''  says  an  in- 
telligent and  Christian  writer,  ' ( leaves  neither  ruler 
nor  subject  to  the  liberty  of  his  own  will,  but  limits 
both  to  the  will  of  God  ;  so  that  the  magistrate  hath 
no  power  to  command  evil  to  be  done  because  he  is  a 
magistrate,  and  the  subject  hath  no  liberty  to  do  evil 
because  a  magistrate  doth  command  it."*  When, 
therefore,  the  Christian  teacher  says,  ' '  Let  every  soul 
be  subject  to  the  higher  powers,"  he  proposes  not  an 
absolute  but  a  conditional  rule — conditional  upon  the 
nature  of  the  actions  which  the  higher  powers  require. 
The  expression,  "There  is  no  power  but  of  God," 
does  not  invalidate  this  conclusion,  because  the  Apos- 
tles themselves  did  not  yield  unconditional  obedience 
to  the  powers  that  were.  Similar  observations  apply 
to  the  parallel  passage  in  ist  Peter.  "Submit  your- 
selves to  every  ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake  ; 
whether  it  be  to  the  king  as  supreme,  or  unto  gov- 
ernors as  unto   them   that   are  sent   by  him,  for  the 

*  Crisp:  "  To  the  Rulers  and   Inhabitants  in  Holland,    &c. 
Abt.  Ann.  1670. 


33°  CIVIL   OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY    III. 

pwiishment  of  evildoers  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that  do 
well. ' '  The  supposition  of  the  just  exercise  of  power 
is  still  kept  in  view. 

III.  The  precepts  give  little  other  information  than 
this  respecting  the  extent  of  the  duty  of  obedience. 
' '  Whosoever  resisteth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordi- 
nance of  God,"  is,  like  the  direction,  to  "be  subject," 
a  conditional  proposition.  What  precise  meeting  was 
here  attached  to  the  word  "  resisteth,"  cannot  perhaps 
be  known  ;  but  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  mean- 
ing was  not  designed  to  be  precise — that  the  propo- 
sition was  general.  '  *  Magistrates  are  not  to  be  re- 
sisted," without  defining,  or  attempting  to  define  the 
limits  of  civil  obedience. 

Upon  the  whole,  this  often  agitated  portion  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  does  not  appear  to  me  to  convey 
much  information  respecting  the  duties  of  civil  obedi- 
ence ;  and  although  it  explicitly  asserts  the  general 
duty  of  obedience  to  the  magistrate,  it  does  not  inform 
us  how  far  that  duty  extends,  nor  what  are  its  limits. 

Concluding,  then,  that  specific  rules  respecting  the 
extent  of  civil  obedience  are  not  to  be  found  in  Script- 
ure, we  are  brought  to  the  position,  that  we  must 
ascertain  this  extent  by  the  general  duties  which 
Christianity  imposes  upon  mankind,  and  by  the  general 
principles  of  political  truth.  In  attempting,  upon 
these  grounds,  to  illustrate  our  civil  duties,  I  am  solic- 
itous to  remark  that  the  individual  Christian  who, 
regarding  himself  as  a  journey er  to  a  better  country, 
thinks  it  best  for  him  not  to  intermeddle  in  political 
affairs,  may  rightly  pursue  a  path  of  simpler  submission 
and  acquiescence  than  that  which  I  believe  Christianity 
allows.  Whatever  may  be  the  peculiar  business  of 
individuals,  the  business  of  man  is  to  act  as  the 
Christian  citizen — not  merely  to  prepare  himself 
for  another  world,   but  to  do  such  good  as  he  may, 


CHAP.    III.]  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  331 

political  as  well  as  social,  in  the  present.  And  yet 
so  fundamentally,  so  utterly  incongruous  with  Chris- 
tian rectitude,  is  the  state  of  many  branches  of 
political  affairs  in  the  present  day,  that  I  know  not 
whether  he  who  is  solicitous  to  adhere  to  this  rectitude 
is  not  both  wise  and  right  in  standing  aloof.  This 
consideration  applies,  especially,  to  circumstances  in 
which  the  limits  of  civil  obedience  are  brought  into 
practical  illustrations.  The  tumult  and  violence  which 
ordinarily  attend  any  approach  to  political  revolutions 
are  such,  that  the  best  and  proper  office  of  a  good  man 
may  be  rather  that  of  a  moderator  of  both  parties 
than  of  a  partisan  with  either. — Nevertheless,  it  is  fit 
that  the  obligations  of  civil  obedience  should  be  dis- 
tinctly understood. 

Referring,  then,  to  political  truth,  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  governors  are  established,  not  for  their  own 
advantage  but  for  the  people's.  If  they  so  far  disre- 
gard this  object  of  their  establishment,  as  greatly  to 
sacrifice  the  public  welfare,  the  people  (and  conse- 
quently individuals)  may  rightly  consider  whether  a 
change  of  governors  is  not  dictated  by  utility  ;  and  if 
it  is,  they  may  rightly  endeavor  to  effect  such  a  change 
by  recommending  it  to  the  public,  and  by  transferring 
their  obedience  to  those  who,  there  is  reason  to  believe, 
will  better  execute  the  offices  for  which  government  is 
instituted.  I  perceive  nothing  unchristian  in  this.  A 
man  who  lived  in  1688,  and  was  convinced  that  it  was 
for  the  general  good  that  William  should  be  placed  on 
the  throne  instead  of  James,  was  at  liberty  to  promote, 
by  all  Christian  means,  the  accession  of  William,  and 
consequently  to  withdraw  his  own,  and  to  recommend 
others  to  withdraw  their  obedience,  from  James.  The 
support  of  the  bill  of  exclusion  in  Charles  the  Second's 
reign,  was  nearly  allied  to  a  withdrawing  of  civil 
obedience.       The    Christian    of    that     day  who   was 


332  CIVII.  OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY   III. 

persuaded  that  the  bill  would  tend  to  the  public  welfare, 
was  right  in  supporting  it,  and  he  would  have  been 
equally  right  in  continuing  his  support  if  Charles  had 
suddenly  died,  and  his  brother  had  suddenly  stepped 
into  the  throne.  If  I  had  lived  in  America  fifty  years 
ago,  and  had  thought  the  disobedience  of  the  colonies 
wrong,  and  that  the  whole  empire  would  be  injured  by 
their  separation  from  England,  I  should  have  thought 
myself  at  liberty  to  urge  these  considerations  upon 
other  men,  and  otherwise  to  exert  myself  (always 
within  the  limits  of  Christian  conduct)  to  support  the 
British  cause.  I  might,  indeed,  have  thought  that 
there  was  so  much  violence  and  wickedness  on  both 
sides,  that  the  Christian  could  take  part  with  neither  : 
but  this  is  an  accidental  connection,  and  in  no  degree 
affects  the  principle  itself.  But  when  the  colonies  were 
actually  separated  from  Britain,  and  it  was  manifestly 
the  general  will  to  be  independent,  I  should  have 
readily  transferred  my  obedience  to  the  United  States, 
convinced  that  the  new  government  was  preferred  by 
the  people  ;  that,  therefore,  it  was  the  rightful  govern- 
ment ;  and,  being  such,  that  it  was  my  Christian  duty 
to  obey  it. 

Now  the  lawful  means  of  discouraging  or  promoting 
an  alteration  of  a  government,  must  be  determined  by 
the  general  duties  of  Christian  morality.  There  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  nothing  in  political  affairs  which  conveys 
a  privilege  to  throw  off  the  Christian  character  ;  and 
whatever  species  of  opposition  or  support  involves  a 
sacrifice  or  suspension  of  this  character  is,  for  that 
reason,  wrong.  Clamorous  and  vehement  debatings 
and  harangues — vituperation  and  calumny — acts  of 
bloodshed  and  violence,  or  instigations  to  such  acts, 
are,  I  think,  measures  in  which  the  first  teachers  of 
Christianity  would  not  have  participated ;  measures 
which  would  have  violated  their  own  precepts  ;  and 


CHAP.    III.]  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  333 

measures,  therefore,  which  a  Christian  is  not  at  liberty 
to  pursue.  Objections  to  these  sentiments  will  no 
doubt  be  at  hand  :  we  shall  be  told  that  such  opposition 
would  be  ineffectual  against  the  encroachments  of  power 
and  the  armies  of  tyranny — that  it  would  be  to  no  pur- 
pose to  reason  with  a  general  who  had  orders  to  enforce 
obedience  ;  and  that  the  nature  of  the  power  to  be 
overcome,  dictated  the  necessity  of  corresponding  power 
to  overcome  it.  To  all  which  it  is,  in  the  first  place,  a 
sufficient  answer,  that  the  question  is  not  what  evils 
may  ensue  from  an  adherence  to  Christianity,  but  what 
Christianity  requires.  We  renew  the  oft-repeated 
truth,  that  Christian  rectitude  is  paramount.  When 
the  first  Christians  refused  obedience  to  some  of  the 
existing  authorities — they  did  not  resist.  They  exem- 
plified their  own  .precepts — to  prefer  the  will  of  God 
before  all  ;  and  if  this  preference  subjected  them  to 
evils — to  bear  them  without  violating  other  portions  of 
His  will  in  order  to  ward  them  off.  But  if  resistance 
to  the  civil  power  was  thus  unlawful  when  the  magis- 
trate commanded  actions  that  were  morally  wrong, 
much  more  clearly  is  it  unlawful,  when  the  wrongness 
consists  only  in  political  grievances.  The  inconven- 
iences of  bad  governments  cannot  constitute  a  superior 
reason  for  violence,  to  that  which  is  constituted  by  the 
imposition  of  laws  that  are  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God. 
And  if  any  one  should  insist  upon  the  magnitude  of 
political  grievances,  the  answer  is  at  hand — these  evils 
cannot  cost  more  to  the  community  as  a  state,  than  the 
other  class  of  evils  costs  to  the  individual  as  a  man. 

If  fidelity  is  required  in  private  life,  through  what- 
ever consequences,  it  is  required  also  in  public.  The 
national  suffering  can  never  be  so  great  as  the  individ- 
ual may  be.  The  individual  may  lose  his  life  for  his 
fidelity,  but  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  national  martyr- 
dom.     Besides  it  is  by  on  means  certain   that  Christian 


334  ClVIly  obedience.  tESSAY   ***• 

opposition  to  tnisgovernment  would  be  so  ineffectual 
as  is  supposed.  Nothing  is  so  invincible  as  determin- 
ate non-compliance.  He  that  resists  by  force,  may  be 
overcome  by  greater  force  ;  but  nothing  can  overcome 
a  calm  and  fixed  determination  not  to  obey.  Violence 
might,  no  doubt,  slaughter  those  who  practised  it,  but 
it  were  an  unusual  ferocity  to  destroy  such  persons  in 
cool  malignity.  In  such  enquiries  we  forget  how  much 
difficulty  we  entail  upon  ourselves.  A  regiment  which, 
after  endeavoring  to  the  uttermost  to  destroy  its  ene- 
mies, refuses  to  yield,  is  in  circumstances  totally  dis- 
similar to  that  which  our  reasonings  suppose.  Such  a 
regiment  might  be  cut  to  pieces  ;  but  it  would  be,  I 
believe,  a  "new  thing  under  the  sun,"  to  go  on 
slaughtering  a  people,  of  whom  it  was  known  not  only 
that  they  had  committed  no  violence,  but  that  they 
would  commit  none. 

Refer  again  to  America  :  The  Americans  thought 
that  it  was  best  for  the  general  welfare  that  they  should 
be  independent,  but  England  persisted  in  imposing  the 
tax.  Imagine,  then,  America  to  have  acted  upon 
Christian  principles,  and  to  have  refused  to  pay  it,  but 
without  those  acts  of  exasperation  and  violence  which 
they  committed.  England  might  have  sent  a  fleet  and 
an  army.  To  what  purpose?  Still  no  one  paid  the 
tax.  The  soldiery  perhaps  sometimes  committed  out- 
rages, and  they  seized  goods  instead  of  the  impost :  still 
the  tax  could  not  be  collected,  except  by  a  system  of 
universal  distraint. — Does  any  man  who  employs  his 
reason,  believe  that  England  would  have  overcome 
such  a  people?  does  he  believe  that  any  government, 
or  any  army  would  have  gone  on  destroying  them  ? 
especially  does  he  believe  this,  if  the  Americans  con- 
tinually reasoned  coolly  and  honorably  with  the  other 
party,  and  manifested,  by  the  unequivocal  language  of 
conduct,  that  they  were  actuated  by  reason  and  by 


CHAP.    III.]  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  335 

Christian  rectitude  ?  No  nation  exists  which  would  go 
on  slaughtering  such  a  people.  It  is  not  in  human 
nature  to  do  such  things ;  and  I  am  persuaded  not 
only  that  American  independence  would  have  been  se- 
cured, but  that  very  far  fewer  of  the  Americans  would 
have  been  destroyed  :  that  very  much  less  of  devasta- 
tion and  misery  would  have  been  occasioned  if  they  had 
acted  upon  these  principles  instead  of  upon  the  vulgar 
system  of  exasperation  and  violence.  In  a  word,  they 
would  have  attained  the  same  advantage  with  more 
virtue,  and  at  less  cost.  —  With  respect  to  those 
voluble  reasoners  who  tell  us  of  meanness  of  spirit,  of 
pusillanimous  submission,  of  base  crouching  before 
tyranny,  and  the  like,  it  may  be  observed  that  they  do 
not  know  what  mental  greatness  is.  Courage  is  not 
indicated  most  unequivocally  by  wearing  swords,  or  by 
wielding  them.  Many  who  have  courage  enough  to 
take  up  arms  against  a  bad  government,  have  not 
courage  enough  to  resist  it  by  the  unbending  firmness 
of  the  mind — to  maintain  a  tranquil  fidelity  to  virtue 
in  opposition  to  power  ;  or  to  endure  with  serenity  the 
consequences  which  may  follow. 

The  Reformation  prospered  more  by  the  resolute  non- 
compliance of  its  supporters,  than  if  all  of  them  had 
provided  themselves  with  swords  and  pistols.  The 
most  severely  persecuted  body  of  Christians  which  this 
country  has  in  later  ages  seen,  was  a  body  who  never 
raised  the  arm  of  resistance.  They  wore  out  that  iron 
rod  of  oppression  which  the  attrition  of  violence  might 
have  whetted  into  a  weapon  that  would  have  cut  them 
off  from  the  earth,  and  they  now  reap  the  fair  fruit  of 
their  principles  in  the  enjoyment  of  privileges  from 
which  others  are  still  debarred. 

There  is  one  class  of  cases  in  which  obedience  is  to 
be  refused  to  the  civil  power  without  any  view  to  an 
alteration  of  existing  institutions — that  is,  when  the 


336  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY   ill. 

magistrate  commands  that  which  it  would  be  immoral  to 
obey.  What  is  wrong  for  the  Christian  is  wrong  for 
the  subject.  "All  human  authority  ceases  at  the 
point  where  obedience  becomes  criminal."  Of  'this 
point  of  criminality  every  man  must  judge  ultimately 
for  himself  ;  for  the  opinion  of  another  ought  not  to  make 
him  obey  when  he  thinks  it  is  criminal,  nor  to  refuse 
obedience  when  he  thinks  it  is  lawful.  Some  even 
appear  to  think  that  the  nature  of  actions  is  altered  by 
the  command  of  the  state  ;  that  what  would  be  unlaw- 
ful without  its  command  is  lawful  with  it.  This  notion 
is  founded  upon  indistinct  views  of  the  extent  of  civil 
authority  ;  for  this  authority  can  never  be  so  great  as 
that  of  the  Deity,  and  it  is  the  Deity  who  requires  us 
not  to  do  evil.  The  Protestant  would  not  think  him- 
self obliged  to  obey  if  the  state  should  require  him  to 
acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  Pope ;  and  why  ? 
Because  he  thinks  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  the 
Divine  will ;  and  this  precisely  is  the  reason  why  he 
should  refuse  obedience  in  other  cases.  He  cannot 
rationally  make  distinctions,  and  say,  "  I  ought  to  re- 
fuse obedience  in  acknowledging  the  Pope,  but  I  ought 
to  obey  in  becoming  the  agent  of  injustice  or  oppres- 
sion." If  I  had  been  a  Frenchman,  and  had  been 
ordered,  probably  at  the  instigation  of  some  courtezan, 
to  immure  a  man,  whom  I  knew  to  be  innocent,  in  the 
Bastile,  I  should  have  refused  ;  for  it  never  can  be 
right  to  be  the  active  agent  of  such  iniquity. 

Under  an  enlightened  and  lenient  government  like 
our  own,  the  cases  are  not  numerous  in  which  the 
Christian  is  exempted  from  the  obligation  to  obedience. 
When,  a  century  or  two  ago,  persecuting  acts  were 
passed  against  some  Christian  communities,  the  mem- 
bers of  these  communities  were  not  merely  at  liberty, 
they  were  required  to  disobey  them.  One  act  imposed 
a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  a  month  for  absenting  one's 


CHAP.     III.]  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  337 

self  from  a  prescribed  form  of  worship.  He  who 
thought  that  form  less  acceptable  to  the  Supreme 
Being  than  another,  ought  to  absent  himself  notwith- 
standing the  law.  So,  when  in  the  present  day,  a 
Christian  thinks  the  profession  of  arms,  or  the  payment 
of  preachers  whom  he  disapproves,  is  wrong,  he  ought, 
notwithstanding  any  laws,  to  decline  to  pay  the  money 
or  to  bear  the  arms. 

Illegal  commands  do  not  appear  to  carry  any  obliga- 
tion to  obedience.  Thus,  when  the  Apostles  had  been 
"beaten  openly  and  uncondemned,  being  Romans," 
the}7  did  not  regard  the  directions  of  the  magistracy  to 
leave  the  prison,  but  asserted  their  right  to  legal  jus- 
tice, by  making  the  magistrates  ' '  come  themselves  and 
fetch  them  out."  When  Charles  I,  made  his  demands 
of  supplies  upon  his  own  illegal  authority,  I  should 
have  thought  myself  at  liberty  to  refuse  to  pay  them. 
This  were  not  a  disobedience  to  government.  Govern- 
ment wras  broken.  One  of  its  constituent  parts  refused 
to  impose  the-  tax,  and  one  imposed  it.  I  might, 
indeed,  have  held  myself  in  doubt  whether  Charles  con- 
stituted the  government  or  not.  If  the  people  had 
thought  it  best  to  choose  him  alone  for  their  ruler,  he 
constituted  the  government,  and  his  demand  would  have 
been  legal ;  for  a  law  is  but  the  voice  of  that  govern- 
ing power  whom  the  people  prefer.  As  it  was,  the 
people  did  not  choose  such  a  government ;  the  demand 
was  illegal,  and  might  therefore  be  refused.  . 


338  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY  III. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

POLITICAL  INFLUENCE. 

Effects  of  influence — Incongruity  of  public  notions — Patronage 
— Dependency  on  the  mother  country. 

The  system  of  governing  by  influence  appears  to  be 
a  substitute  for  the  government  of  force — an  interme- 
diate step  between  awing  by  the  sword  and  directing 
by  reason  and  virtue.  When  the  general  character  of 
political  measures  is  such,  that  reason  and  virtue  do 
not  sufficiently  support  them  to  recommend  them,  on 
their  own  merits,  to  the  public  approbation — these 
measures  must  be  rejected,  or  they  must  be  supported  by 
foreign  means  ;  and  when,  by  the  political  institutions 
of  a  people,  force  is  necessarily  excluded,  nothing 
remains  but  to  have  recourse  to  some  species  of  influ- 
ence. There  is  another  ground  upon  which  influence 
becomes,  in  a  certain  sense,  necessary — which  is,  that 
there  is  so  much  imperfection  of  virtue  in  the  majority 
of  legislators — they  are  so  much  guided  by  interested 
or  ambitious  or  party  motives,  that  for  a  measure  to  be 
recommended  by  its  own  excellence,  is  sometimes  not 
sufficient  to  procure  their  concurrence  ;  and  thus  it 
happens  that  influence  is  resorted  to,  not  merely  be- 
cause public  measures  are  deficient  in  purity,  but 
because  there  is  a  deficiency  of  uprightness  in  public 
men. 

The  degree  of  this  influence,  which  may  be  required 
to  give  stability  to  an  executive  body,  (and  therefore  to 
a  constitution,)  will  vary  with  the  character  of  its  own 
policy.  The  more  widely  that  policy  deviates  from 
rectitude,  the  greater  will  be  the  demand  for  influence 
to  induce  concurrence  in  its  measures.  The  degree  of 
influence  that  is  actually  exerted  by  a  government,  is 
therefore  no  despicable  criterion  of  the  excellence  of 
its  practice. 


CHAP.   IV.]  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  339 

But  let  it  be  constantly  borne  in  mind,  that  when  we 
thus  speak  of  the  ' '  necessity  ' '  for  influence  to  support 
governments,  we  speak  only  of  governments  as  they 
are,  and  of  nations  as  they  are.  There  is  no  necessity 
for  influence  to  support  good  government  over  a  good 
people.  All  influence  but  that  which  addresses  itself 
to  the  judgment,  is  wrong — wrong  in  morals,  and 
therefore  indefensible  upon  whatever  plea. 

4  -  All  influence  but  that  which  addresses  itself  to  the 
judgment,  is  wrong. ' '  Of  the  moral  offence  which  this 
influence  implies,  many  are  guilty  who  oppose  govern- 
ments, as  well  as  those  who  support  them,  or  as  govern- 
ments themselves.  It  is  evidently  not  a  whit  more  virtuous 
to  exert  influence  in  opposing  governments  than  in  sup- 
porting them :  nor,  indeed,  is  it  so  virtuous.  To  what  is  a 
man  influenced  ?  Obviously,  to  do  that  which,  without  the 
influence,  he  would  not  do ;— that  is  to  say,  he  is  induced 
to  violate  his  judgment  at  the  request  or  at  the  will  of 
other  men.  It  can  need  no  argument  to  show  that  this  is 
vicious.  In  truth,  it  is  vicious  in  a  very  high  degree  ; 
for  to  conform  our  conduct  to  our  ow?i  sober  judgment, 
is  one  of  the  first  dictates  of  the  moral  law  :  and  the 
viciousness  is  so  much  the  greater,  because  the  express 
purpose  for  which  a  man  is  appointed  to  legislate,  is 
that  the  community  may  have  the  benefit  of  his  unin- 
fluenced judgment.  Breach  of  trust  is  added  to  the 
sacrifice  of  individual  integrity.  A  nation  can  gain 
nothing  by  the  knowledge  or  experience  of  a  million  of 
"  influenced  "  legislators.  It  is  curious,  that  the  sub- 
mission to  influence  which  men  often  practise  as  legis- 
lators, they  would  abhor  as  judges.  What  should  we 
say  of  a  judge  or  a  juryman  who  accepted  a  place  or  a 
promise  as  a  bribe  for  an  unjust  sentence?  We  should 
prosecute  the  juryman  and  address  the  parliament  for 
a  removal  of  the  judge.  Is  it  then  of  so  much  less  con- 
sequence in  what  manner  affairs  of  state  are  conducted 


340  CIVIIy  OBEDIENCE.  [ESSAY    III. 

than  the  affairs  of  individuals,  that  that  which 
would  be  disgraceful  in  one  case,  is  reputable  in 
another?  No  account  can  be  given  of  this  strange  in- 
congruity of  public  notions,  than  that  custom  has  in 
one  case  blinded  our  eyes,  and  in  the  other  has  taught 
us  to  see.  Let  the  legislator  who  would  abhor  to  ac- 
cept a  purse  to  bribe  him  to  write  ignoramus  upon  a 
true  bill,  apply  the  principle  upon  which  his  abhor- 
rence is  founded  to  his  political  conduct.  When  our 
moral  principles  are  consistent  these  incongruities  will 
cease.  When  uniform  truth  takes  the  place  of  vulgar 
practice  and  opinion,  these  incongruities  will  become 
wonderful  for  their  absurdity  ;  and  men  will  scarcely 
believe  that  their  fathers,  who  could  see  so  clearly,  saw 
so  ill.  The  same  sort  of  stigma  which  now  attaches  to 
Lord  Bacon,  will  attach  to  multitudes  who  pass  for 
honorable  persons  in  the  present  day. 

A  man  may  lawfully,  no  doubt,  take  a  more  active 
part  in  political  measures,  in  compliance  with  the 
wishes  of  another,  than  he  might  otherwise  incline  to 
do  ;  but  to  support  the  measures  of  an  opposition  or  an 
administration,  because  they  are  their  measures,  can 
never  be  lawful. — Nor  can  it  ever  be  lawful  to  magnify 
the  advantages  or  to  expatiate  upon  the  mischiefs  of  a 
measure,  beyond  his  secret  estimate  of  its  demerits  or 
its  merits.  That  legislator  is  viciously  influenced,  who 
says  or  who  does  any  thing  which  he  would  think  it 
not  proper  to  say  or  do  if  he  were  an  independent 
man. 

But  it  will  be  said,  Since  influence  is  inseparable 
from  the  possession  of  patronage,  and  since  patronage 
must  be  vested  somewhere,  what  is  to  be  done  ?  or  how 
are  the  evils  of  influence  to  be  done  away  ? — a  question 
which,  like  many  other  questions  in  political  morality, 
is  attended  with  accidental  rather  than  essential  diffi- 
culties.    Patronage,  in  a  virtuous  state  of  mankind, 


CHAP.    IV. J  CIVII,  OBEDIENCE.  341 

would  be  small.  There  would  be  none  in  the  church 
and  little  in  the  state.  Men  would  take  the  over-sight 
of  the  Christian  flock,  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a 
ready  mind.  If  the  ready  mind  existed,  the  influence 
of  patronage  would  be  needless :  and,  as  a  needless 
thing,  it  would  be  done  away.  And  as  to  the  state, 
when  we  consider  how  much  of  patronage  in  all 
nations  results  from  the  vicious  condition  of  mankind 
— especially  for  military  and  naval  appointments — it 
will  appear  that  much  of  this  class  of  patronage  is  ac- 
cidental also.  Take  away  that  wickedness  and  violence 
in  which  hostile  measures  originate,  and  fleets  and 
armies  would  no  longer  be  needed  ;  and  with  their  dis- 
solution there  would  be  a  prodigious  diminution  of 
patronage  and  of  influence.  So,  if  we  continue  the 
enquiry,  how  far  any  given  source  of  influence  arising 
from  patronage  is  necessary  to  the  institution  of  civil 
government,  we  shall  find,  at  last,  that  the  necessary 
portion  is  very  small.  We  are  little  accustomed  to 
consider  how  simple  a  thing  civil  government  is — nor 
what  an  unnumbered  multiplicity  of  offices  and  sources 
of  patronage  would  be  cut  off,  if  it  existed  in  its  simple 
and  rightful  state. 


342  MORAE  LEGISLATION.  [ESSAY   III. 

CHAPTER  V. 

MORAL-  LEGISLATION. 

Duties  of  a  Ruler — The  two  objects  of  moral  legislation — Edu- 
cation of  the  People — Abrogation  of  bad  laws. 

If  a  person  who  considered  the  general  objects  of  the 
institution  of  civil  government,  were  to  look  over  the 
titles  of  the  acts  of  a  legislature  during  fifteen  or  twenty 
years,  he  would  probably  be  surprised  to  find  the  pro- 
portion so  small  of  those  of  which  it  was  the  express 
object  to  benefit  the  moral  character  of  the  people. 
He  would  find  many  laws  that  respected  foreign  policy, 
many  perhaps  that  referred  to  internal  political 
economy,  many  for  the  punishment  of  crime — but  few 
that  tended  positively  to  promote  the  general  happiness 
by  increasing  the  general  virtue.  This,  I  say,  may  be 
a  reasonable  subject  of  surprise,  when  it  is  considered 
that  the  attainment  of  this  happiness  is  the  original 
and  proper  object  of  all  government.  There  is  a 
general  want  of  advertence  to  this  object,  arising  in 
part,  perhaps,  from  the  insufficient  degree  of  conviction 
that  virtue  is  the  best  promoter  of  the  general  weal. 

To  prevent  an  evil  is  always  better  than  to  repair  it : 
for  which  reason,  if  it  be  in  the  power  of  the  legislator 
to  diminish  temptation  or  its  influence,  he  will  find  that 
this  is  the  most  efficacious  means  of  diminishing  the 
offences  and  of  increasing  the  happiness  of  a  people. 
He  who  vigilantly  detects  and  punishes  vicious  men, 
does  well ;  but  he  who  prevents  them  from  becoming 
vicious,  does  better.  It  is  better,  both  for  a  sufferer, 
for  a  culprit,  and  for  the  community,  that  a  man's 
purse  should  remain  in  his  pocket,  than  that,  when  it 
it  is  taken  away,  the  thief  should  be  sure  of  a  prison. 

So  far  as  is  practicable,  a  government  ought  to  be  to  a 
people,   what  a  judicious  parent  is  to  a  family— not 


CHAP.    V.]  MORAI,   I^GlSIyATlON.  343 

merely  the  ruler,  but  the  instructor  and  the  guide.  It 
is  not  perhaps  so  much  in  the  power  of  a  government 
to  form  the  character  of  a  people  to  virtue  or  to  vice, 
as  it  is  in  the  power  of  a  parent  to  form  that  of  his 
children.  But  much  can  be  done  if  every  thing  cannot 
be  :  and  indeed  when  we  take  into  account  the  relative 
duration  of  the  political  body  as  compared  with  that  of 
a  family,  we  may  have  reason  to  doubt  whether  govern- 
ments cannot  effect  as  much  in  ages  as  parents  can  do  in 
years.  Now,  a  judicious  father  adopts  a  system  of  moral 
culture  as  well  as  of  restraint  :  he  does  not  merely  lop 
the  vagrant  branches  of  his  intellectual  plant,  but  he 
trains  and  directs  them  in  their  proper  course.  The 
second  object  is  to  punish  vice — the  first  to  promote 
virtue.  You  may  punish  vice  without  securing  virtue  ; 
but,  if  you  secure  virtue,  the  whole  work  is  done. 

Yet  this  primary  object  of  moral  legislation  is  that  to 
which,  comparatively,  little  attention  is  paid.  Penal- 
ties are  multiplied  upon  the  doers  of  evil,  but  little 
endeavor  is  used  to  prevent  the  commission  of  evil  by 
inducing  principles  and  habits  which  overpower  the 
tendency  to  the  commission.  In  this  respect,  we  begin 
to  legislate  at  the  secondary  part  of  our  office  rather 
than  at  the  first.  We  are  political  surgeons,  who  cut 
out  the  tumors  in  the  state,  rather  than  the  prescribers 
of  that  wholesome  regimen  by  which  the  diseases  in  the 
political  body  are  prevented. 

But  here  arises  a  difficulty — How  shall  that  political 
parent  teach  virtue  which  is  not  virtuous  itself  ?  The 
governments  of  most  nations,  however  they  may  incul- 
cate virtue  in  their  enactments,  preach  it  very  imper- 
fectly by  their  example. — What  then  is  to  be  done? 
1 '  Make  the  tree  good. ' '  The  first  step  in  moral  legis- 
lation is  to  rectify  the  legislator.  It  holds  of  nations  as 
of  men,  that  the  beam  should  be  first  removed  out  of 
our  own  eye.     Laws,  in  their  insulated  character,  will 


344  MORAI,  LEGISLATION.  [ESSAY   III. 

be  but  partially  effectual,  whilst  the  practical  example 
of  a  government  is  bad.  To  this  consideration  sufficient 
attention  is  not  ordinarily  paid.  We  do  not  adequately 
estimate  the  influence  of  a  government's  example  upon 
the  public  character.  Government  is  an  object  to 
which  we  look  up  as  to  our  superior ;  and  the  many 
interests  which  prompt  men  to  assimilate  themselves  to 
the  character  of  the  government,  added  to  the  natural 
tendency  of  subordinate  parts  to  copy  the  example  of 
the  superior,  occasions  the  character  of  a  government, 
independently  of  its  particular  measures,  to  be  of  im- 
mense influence  upon  the  general  virtue.  Illustrations 
abound.  If,  in  any  instance,  political  subserviency  is 
found  to  be  a  more  efficient  recommendation  than 
integrity  of  character,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  sub- 
serviency is  practically  inculcated,  and  that  integrity  is 
practically  discouraged. 

Amongst  that  portion,  then,  of  a  legislator's  office 
which  consists  in  endeavoring  the  moral  amelioration 
of  a  people,  the  amendment  of  political  institutions  is 
conspicuous.  In  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  the  in- 
fluence of  governments,  is  the  obligation  to  direct  that 
influence  in  favor  of  virtue.  A  government  of  which 
the  principles  and  practice  were  accordant  with  recti- 
tude, would  very  powerfully  affect  the  general  morals. 
He,  therefore,  who  explodes  one  vicious  principle,  or 
who  amends  one  corrupt  practice,  is  to  be  regarded  as 
amongst  the  most  useful  and  honorable  of  public  men. 

If,  however,  in  any  state  there  are  difficulties,  at 
present  insurmountable,  in  the  way  of  improving 
political  institutions,  still  let  us  do  what  we  can.  Pre- 
cept without  example  may  do  some  good  :  nor  are  we 
to  forget,  that  if  the  public  virtue  is  increased  by 
whatever  means,  it  will  react  upon  the  governing 
power.  A  good  people  will  not  long  tolerate  a  bad 
government. 


CHAP.    V.]  MORAL   LEGISLATION.  345 

Amongst  the  most  obvious  means  of  rectifying  the 
general  morals  by  positive  measures,  one  is  the  encourag- 
ing a  judicious  education  of  the  people.  Upon  this 
judiciousness  almost  all  its  success  depends. 

But  you  say,  All  this  will  add  to  the  national  bur- 
dens. We  need  not  be  very  jealous  on  this  head, 
whilst  we  are  so  little  jealous  of  more  money  worse 
spent.  Is  it  known,  or  is  it  considered,  that  the  ex- 
pense of  an  ordinary  campaign  would  endow  a  school 
in  every  parish  in  England  and  Ireland  for  ever  f  Yet 
how  coolly  (who  will  contradict  me  if  I  say — how 
needlessly?)  we  devote  money  to  conduct  a  campaign  ! 
— Prevent,  by  a  just  and  conciliating  policy,  one  single 
war,  and  the  money  thus  saved  would  provide,  perpet- 
ually, a  competent  mental  and  moral  education  for 
every  individual  who  needs  it  in  the  three  kingdoms. 
Let  a  man  for  a  moment  indulge  his  imagination — let 
him  rather  indulge  his  reason,  in  supposing  that  one 
of  our  wars  during  the  last  century  had  been  avoided, 
and  that,  fifty  years  ago,  such  an  education  had  been 
provided.  Of  what  comparative  importance  is  the  war 
to  us  now  ?  In  the  one  case,  the  money  has  provided 
the  historian  with  materials  to  fill  his  pages  with 
armaments,  and  victories,  and  defeats  : — it  has  en- 
abled us 

To  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale  ; 

— in  the  other,  it  would  have  effected,  and  would  be 
now  effecting,  and  would  be  destined  for  ages  to  effect, 
a  great  amount  of  solid  good  ;  a  great  increase  of  the 
virtue,  the  order,  and  the  happiness  of  the  people. 


346  OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OP  PUNISHMENT.      [ESSAY  III. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OF  PUNISHMENT. 

The  Three  Objects  of  Punishment  : — Reformation  of  the  Offen- 
der : — Example  : — Restitution — Punishment  may  be  increased 
as  well  as  diminished. 

Why  is  a  man  who  commits  an  offence  punished  for 
the  act  ?  Is  it  for  his  own  advantage,  or  for  that  of 
others,  or  for  both? — For  both,  and  primarily  for  his 
own  :  *  which  answer  will  perhaps  the  more  readily 
recommend  itself,  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  good  of 
others,  that  is,  of  the  public,  is  best  consulted  by  those 
systems  of  punishment  which  are  most  effectual  in 
benefiting  the  offender  himself. 

When  we  recur  to  the  precepts  and  the  spirit  of 
Christianity,  we  find  that  the  one  great  pervading  prin- 
ciple by  which  it  requires  us  to  regulate  our  conduct 
towards  others,  is  that  of  operative,  practical  good-will 
— that  good-will  which,  if  they  be  in  suffering,  will 
prompt  us  to  alleviate  the  misery  ;  if  they  be  vicious, 
will  prompt  us  to  reclaim  them  from  vice.  That  the 
misconduct  of  the  individual  exempts  us  from  the 
obligation  to  regard  this  rule,  it  would  be  futile  to 
imagine.  It  is  by  him  that  the  exercise  of  benevo- 
lence is  peculiarly  needed.  He  is  the  morally  sick, 
who  needs  the  physician  ;  and  such  a  physician  he, 
who  by  comparison  is  morally  whole,  should  be.  If 
we  adopt  the  spirit  of  the  declaration,  "  I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance, ' '  we  shall 
entertain  no  doubt  that  the  reformation  of  offenders  is 
the   primary    business  of    the   Christian   in   devising 

*  ' '  The  end  of  all  correction  is  either  the  amendment  of 
wicked  men  or  to  prevent  the  influence  of  ill  example."  This 
is  the  rule  of  Seneca  ;  and  by  mentioning  amendment  first,  he 
appears  to  have  regarded  it  as  the  primary  object. 


CHAP.    VI.]    OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OF  PUNISHMENT.  347 

punishments.  There  appears  no  reason  why,  in  the 
case  of  public  criminals,  the  spirit  of  the  rule  should 
not  be  acted  upon — ' '  If  a  brother  be  overtaken  in  a 
fault  restore  such  an  one. ' '  Amongst  the  Corinthians 
there  was  an  individual  who  had  committed  a  gross 
offence,  such  as  is  now  punished  by  the  law  of  England. 
Of  this  criminal  Paul  speaks  in  strong  terms  of  repro- 
bation in  the  first  epistle.  The  effect  proved  to  be 
good  ;  and  the  offender  having  apparently  become  re- 
formed, the  Corinthians  were  directed  in  the  second 
epistle,  to  forgive  and  to  comfort  him. 

When  therefore  a  person  has  committed  a  crime,  the 
great  duty  of  those  who  in  common  with  himself  are 
candidates  for  the  mercy  of  God,  is  to  endeavor  to 
meliorate  and  rectify  the  dispositions  in  which  his 
crime  originates  ;  to  subdue  the  vehemence  of  his  pas- 
sions— to  raise  up  in  his  mind  a  power  that  may  coun- 
teract the  power  of  future  temptation.  We  should  feel 
towards  these  mentally  diseased,  as  we  feel  towards  the 
physical  sufferer — compassion  ;  and  the  great  object 
should  be  to  cure  the  disease.  No  doubt,  in  endeavor- 
ing this  object,  severe  remedies  must  often  be  em- 
ployed. It  is  just  what  we  should  expect ;  and  the 
remedies  will  probably  be  severe  in  proportion  to  the 
inveteracy  and  malignity  of  the  complaint.  But  still 
the  end  should  never  be  forgotten,  and  I  think  a  just 
estimate  of  our  moral  obligations,  will  lead  us  to  re- 
gard the  attainment  of  that  end  as  paramount  to  every 
other. 

There  is  one  great  practical  advantage  in  directing 
the  attention  especially  to  this  moral  cure,  which  is 
this,  that  if  it  be  successful,  it  prevents  the  offender 
from  offending  again.  It  is  well  known  that  the  pro- 
portion of  those  who,  having  once  suffered  the  stated 
punishment,  again  transgress  the  laws  and  are  again 


348  OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OF  PUNISHMENT.    [ESSAY  III. 

convicted,  is  great.    But  to  whatever  extent  reformation 
was  attained,  this  unhappy  result  would  be  prevented. 

The  second  object  of  punishment,  that  of  example, 
appears  to  be  recognised  as  right  by  Christianity,  when 
it  says  that  the  magistrate  is  a  ' '  terror  ' '  to  bad  men  ; 
and  when  it  admonishes  such  to  be  ' '  afraid  ' '  of  his 
power.  There  can  be  no  reason  for  speaking  of  pun- 
ishment as  a  terror,  unless  it  were  right  to  adopt  such 
punishments  as  would  deter.  In  the  private  discipline 
of  the  church  the  same  idea  is  kept  in  view  : — "Them 
that  sin  rebuke  before  all,  that  others  also  may  fear."* 
The  parallel  of  physical  disease  may  also  still  hold.  The 
offender  is  a  member  of  the  social  body  ;  and  the  physi- 
cian who  endeavors  to  remove  a  local  disease,  always 
acts  with  a  reference  to  the  health  of  the  system. 

In  stating  reformation  as  the  first  object,  we  also 
conclude,  that  if,  in  any  case,  the  attainment  of  reforma- 
tion and  the  exhibition  of  example  should  be  found  to 
be  incompatible,  the  former  is  to  be  preferred.  I  say 
if;  for  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  such  cases  will 
ever  arise.  The  measures  which  are  necessary  to 
reformation  must  operate  as  example  ;  and  in  general, 
since  the  reformation  of  the  more  hardened  offenders  is 
not  to  be  expected,  except  by  severe  measures,  the 
influence  of  terror  in  endeavoring  reformation  will 
increase  with  the  malignity  of  the  crime.  This  is  just 
what  we  need  and  what  the  penal  legislator  is  so  solici- 
tous to  secure.  The  point  for  the  exercise  of  wisdom 
is,  to  attain  the  second  object  in  attaining  the  first. 
A  primary  regard  to  the  first  object  is  compatible  with 
many  modifications  of  punishment,  in  order  more  effect- 
ually to  attain  the  second.  If  there  are  two  measures, 
of  which  both  tend  alike  to  reformation,  and  one  tends 
most  to  operate  as  example,  that  one  should  unques- 
tionably be  preferred. 

*  i  Tim.  v.  20. 


CHAP.    VI.]    OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OF  PUNISHMENT.  349 

There  is  a  third  object  which,  though  subordinate  to 
the  others,  might  perhaps  still  obtain  greater  notice 
from  the  legislator  than  it  is  wont  to  do — restitution  or 
compensation.*  Since  what  are  called  criminal  actions 
are  commonly  injuries  committed  by  one  man  upon 
another,  it  appears  to  be  a  very  obvious  dictate  of  reason 
that  the  injury  should  be  repaired ; — that  he  from 
whom  the  thief  steals  a  purse  should  regain  its  value  ; 
that  he  who  is  injured  in  his  person  or  otherwise, 
should  receive  such  compensation  as  he  may.  When 
my  house  is  broken  into  and  a  hundred  pounds'  worth 
of  property  is  carried  off,  it  is  but  an  imperfect  satisfac- 
tion to  me  that  the  robber  will  be  punished.  I  ought 
to  recover  the  value  of  my  property.  The  magistrate, 
in  taking  care  of  the  general,  should  take  care  of  the 
individual  weal.  The  laws  of  England  do  now  award 
compensation  in  damages  for  some  injuries.  This  is  a 
recognition  of  the  principle  ;  although  it  is  remarkable, 
not  only  that  the  number  of  offences  which  .are  thus 
punished  is  small ,  but  that  they  are  frequently  of  a  sort 
in  which  pecuniary  loss  has  not  been  sustained  by  the 
injured  party. 

I  do  not  imagine  that  in  the  present  state  of  penal 
law,  or  of  the  administration  of  justice,  a  general 
regard  to  compensation  is  practical ;>le,  but  this  does  not 
pro\^  that  it  ought  not  to  be  regarded.  If  in  an  im- 
proved state  of  penal  affairs,  it  should  be  found  practi- 
cable to  oblige  offenders  to  recompense  by  their  labor 
those  who  had  suffered  by  their  crime,  this  advantage 
would  attend,  that  while  it  would  probably  involve 
considerable  punishment,  it  would  approve  itself  to  the 
offender's  mind  as  the  demand  of  reason  and  of  justice. 

*  "  The  law  of  nature  commands  that  reparation  be  made." 
Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  6,  c.  8.  And  this  dictate  of  nature 
appears  to  have  been  recognized  in  the  Mosaic  law,  in  which 
compensation  to  the  suffering  party  is  expressly  required. 


350  OF  THE  PROPER  ENDS  OE  PUNISHMENT.    [ESSAY  III. 

This  is  no  trifling  consideration  ;  for  in  every  species 
of  coercion  and  punishment,  public  or  domestic,  it  is  of 
consequence  that  the  punished  party  should  feel  the 
justice  and  propriety  of  the  measures  which  are 
adopted. 


Respecting  the  relative  utility  of  different  modes  of 
punishment  and  of  prison  discipline,  we  have  little  to 
say,  partly  because  the  practical  recognition  of  refor- 
mation as  a  primary  object  affords  good  security  for  the 
adoption  of  judicious  measures,  and  partly  because 
these  topics  have  already  obtained  much  of  the  public 
attention.  One  suggestion  may,  however,  be  made, 
that  as  good  consequences  have  followed  from  making 
a  prisoner's  confinement  depend  for  its  duration  on  his 
conduct,  so  that  if  it  be  exemplary  the  period  is  dimin- 
ished, there  appears  no  sufficient  reason  why  the  par- 
allel system  should  not  be  adopted  of  increasing  the 
original  sentence  if  his  conduct  continue  vicious. 
There  is  no  breach  of  reason  or  of  justice  in  this.  For 
the  reasonable  object  of  punishment  is  to  attain  certain 
ends,  and  if,  by  the  original  sentence,  it  is  found  that 
these  ends  are  not  attained,  reason  appears  to  dictate 
that  stronger  motives  should  be  employed. — It  cannot 
surely  be  less  reasonable  to  add  to  a  culprit's  penalty  if 
his  conduct  be  bad,  than  to  deduct  from  it  if  it  be  good- 
For  a  sentence  should  not  be  considered  as  a  propitia- 
tion of  the  law,  nor  when  it  is  inflicted  should  it  be 
considered,  as  of  necessity,  that  all  is  done.  The  sen- 
tence which  the  law  pronounces  is  a  general  rule — 
good  perhaps  as  a  general  rule,  but  sometimes  inade- 
quate to  its  end.  And  the  utility  of  retaining  the  power 
of  adding  to  a  penalty  is  the  same  in  kind,  and  proba- 
bly greater  in  degree,  than  the  power  of  diminishing  it. 
In  one  case  the  culprit  is  influenced  by  hope,  and  in 
the  other  by  fear.     Fear  is  the  more  powerful  agent 


CHAP.    VII.]  PUNISHMENT  OF   DEATH.  35 1 

upon  some  men's  minds,  and  hope  upon  others.  And 
as  to  the  justice  of  such  an  institution ,  it  appears  easily 
to  be  vindicated;  for  what  is  the  standard  of  justice? 
The  sentence  of  the  law  ?  No  ;  for  if  it  were,  it  would 
be  unjust  to  abate  of  it  as  well  as  to  add.  Is  it  the 
original  crime  of  the  offender  ?  No  ;  for  if  it  were,  the 
same  crime,  by  whatever  variety  of  conduct  it  was 
afterwards  followed,  must  always  receive  an  equal  pen- 
alty. The  standard  of  justice  is  to  be  estimated  by  the 
ends  for  which  punishments  are  inflicted.  Now, 
although  it  would  be  too  much  to  affirm  that  any 
penalty,  or  duration  of  penalty,  would  be  just  until 
these  ends  were  attained,  yet  surely  it  is  not  unjust  to 
endeavor  their  attainment  by  some  additions  to  an  origi- 
nal penalty  when  they  cannot  be  attained  without. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH. 


Of  the  three  objects  of  punishment,  the  punishment  of  death 
regards  but  one — Reformation  of  minor  offenders  :  Greater 
criminals  neglected — Capital  punishments  not  efficient  as 
examples — Public  executions — Paul — Grotius — Murder — The 
punishment  of  death  irrevocable — Rousseau — Recapitulation. 

I  SELECT  for  observation  this  peculiar  mode  of  pun- 
ishment on  account  of  its  peculiar  importance. 

And  here  we  are  impressed  at  the  outset  with  the 
consideration,  that  of  the  three  great  objects  which 
have  just  been  proposed  as  the  proper  ends  of  punish- 
ment, the  punishment  of  death  regards  but  one  ;  and 
that  one  not  the  first  and  the  greatest.  The  only  end 
which  is  consulted  in  taking  the  life  of  an  offender,  is 
that  of  example  to  other  men.     His  own  reformation 


352  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  [ESSAY  III. 

is  put  almost  out  of  the  question.  Now  if  the  prin- 
ciples delivered  in  the  preceding  chapter  be  sound, 
they  present  at  once  an  almost  insuperable  objection  to 
the  punishment  of  death.  If  reformation  be  the 
primary  object,  and  if  the  punishment  of  death  pre- 
cludes attention  to  that  object,  the  punishment  of 
death  is  wrong. 

To  take  the  life  of  a  fellow -creature  is  to  exert  the 
utmost  possible  power  which  man  can  possess  over 
man.  It  is  to  perform  an  action  the  most  serious  and 
awful  which  a  human  being  can  perform.  Respecting 
such  an  action,  then,  can  any  truth  be  more  manifest 
than  that  the  dictates  of  Christianity  ought,  especially 
to  be  taken  into  account  ?  If  these  dictates  are  rightly 
urged  upon  us  in  the  minor  concerns  of  life,  can  any 
man  doubt  whether  they  ought  to  influence  us  in  the 
greatest?  Yet  what  is  the  fact?  Why,  that  in  de- 
fending capital  punishments,  these  dictates  are  almost 
placed  out  of  the  question.  We  hear  a  great  deal 
about  security  of  property  and  life,  a  great  deal  about 
the  necessity  of  making  examples  ;  but  almost  nothing 
about  the  moral  law.  It  might  be  imagined  that  upon 
this  subject  our  religion  imposed  no  obligations ;  for 
nearly  every  argument  that  is  urged  in  favor  of  capital 
punishments  would  be  as  valid  and  as  appropriate  in 
the  mouth  of  a  pagan  as  in  our  own.  Can  this  be 
right?  Is  it  conceivable  that,  in  the  exercise  of  the 
most  tremendous  agency  which  is  in  the  power  of  man,  it 
can  be  right  to  exclude  all  reference  to  the  expressed 
will  of  God  ? 

I  acknowledge  that  this  exclusion  of  the  Christian 
law  from  the  defences  of  the  punishment,  is  to  me 
almost  a  conclusive  argument  that  the  punishment  is 
wrong.  Nothing  that  is  right  can  need  such  an  ex- 
clusion ;  and  we  should  not  practise  it  if  it  were  not  for 
a  secret  perception,  that  to  apply  the  pure  requisitions 


CHAP.   VII.]  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  353 

of  Christianity  would  not  serve  the  purpose  of  the  ad- 
vocate. Look  for  a  moment  upon  the  capital  offender 
and  upon  ourselves.  He,  a  depraved  and  deep  violator 
of  the  law  of  God — one  who  is  obnoxious  to  the  ven- 
geance of  heaven — one,  however,  whom  Christ  came 
peculiarly  to  call  to  repentance  and  to  save — Ourselves, 
his  brethren — brethren  by  the  relationship  of  nature — 
brethren  in  some  degree  in  offences  against  God — 
brethren  especially  in  the  trembling  hope  of  a  common 
salvation.  How  ought  beings  so  situated  to  act  towards 
one  another  ?  Ought  we  to  kill  or  to  amend  him  ?  Ought 
we,  so  far  as  is  in  our  power,  to  cut  off  his  future 
hope,  or,  so  far  as  is  in  our  power,  to  strengthen  the 
foundation  of  that  hope  ?  Is  it  the  reasonable  or  de- 
cent office  of  one  candidate  for  the  mercy  of  God  to 
hang  his  fellow-candidate  upon  a  gibbet  ?  I  am  serious, 
though  men  of  levity  may  laugh.  If  such  men  reject 
Christianity,  I  do  not  address  them.  If  they  admit  its 
truth,  let  them  manfully  show  that  its  principles 
should  not  thus  be  applied. 

No  one  disputes  that  the  reformation  of  offenders  is 
desirable,  though  some  may  not  allow  it  to  be  the 
primary  object.  For  the  purposes  of  reformation  we 
have  recourse  to  constant  oversight — to  classification  of 
offenders — to  regular  labor — to  religious  instruction. 
For  whom  ?  For  minor  criminals.  Do  not  the  greater 
criminals  need  reformation  too  ?  If  all  these  endeavors 
are  necessary  to  effect  the  amendment  of  the  less  de- 
praved, are  they  not  necessary  to  effect  the  amendment 
of  the  more?  But  we  stop  just  where  our  exertions 
are  most  needed  ;  as  if  the  reformation  of  a  bad  man 
was  of  the  less  consequence  as  the  intensity  of  his 
wickedness  became  greater.  If  prison  discipline  and  a 
penitentiary  be  needful  for  sharpers  and  pickpockets, 
surely  they  are  necessary  for  murderers  and  highway- 
men.    Yet  we  reform  the  one  and  hang  the  other  ! 


354  PUNISHMENT  OE  DEATH.  [ESSAY  III 

Since,  then,  so  much  is  sacrificed  to  extend  the  terror 
of  example,  we  ought  to  be  indisputably  certain  that 
the  terror  of  capital  punishment  is  greater  than  that  of 
all  others.  We  ought  not  certainly  to  sacrifice  the 
requisitions  of  the  Christian  law  unless  we  know  that  a 
regard  to  them  would  be  attended  with  public  evil.* 
Do  we  know  this  ?  Are  we  indisputably  certain  that 
capital  punishments  are  more  efficient  as  examples 
than  any  others  ?  We  are  not.  We  do  not  know  from 
experience,  and  we  cannot  know  without  it.  —In  Eng- 
land the  experiment  has  not  been  made.  The  punish- 
ment therefore  is  wrong  in  us,  whatever  it  might  be  in 
a  more  experienced  people.  For  it  is  wrong  unless  it 
can  be  shown  to  be  right.  It  is  not  a  neutral  affair.  If 
it  is  not  indispensably  necessary,  it  is  unwarrantable. 
And  since  we  do  not  know  that  it  is  indispensable,  it  is, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  unwarrantable. 

And  with  respect  to  the  experience  of  other  nations, 
who  will  affirm  that  crimes  have  been  increased  in  con- 
sequence of  the  diminished  frequency  of  executions  ? 
Who  will  affirm  that  the  laws  and  punishments  of 
America  are  not  as  effectual  as  our  own  ?  Yet  they 
have  abolished  capital  punishment  for  all  private 
crimes  except  murder  of  the  first  degree. 
Where,  then,  is  our  pretension  to  a  justification  of  our 
own  practice  ?  It  is  a  satisfaction  that  so  many  facts 
and  arguments  are  before  the  public  which  show  the 
inefficacy  of  the  punishment  of  death  in  this  country  ; 
and  this  is  one  reason  why  they  are  not  introduced 
here.  \ '  There  are  no  practical  despisers  of  death  like 
those  who  touch,  and  taste,  and  handle  death  daily,  by 
daily  committing  capital  offences.  They  make  a  jest 
of  death  in  all  its  forms  ;  and  all  its  terrors  are  in  their 

*  We  ought  not  for  any  reason  to  do  this  ;  but  I  speak  in  the 
present  paragraph  of  the  pretensions  of  expediency. 


CHAP.    VII.]  PUNISHMKNT  OF  DEATH.  355 

mouths  a  scorn."*  "  Profligate  criminals,  such  as 
common  thieves  and  highwaymen,"  ''have  always 
been  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  gibbet  as  a  lot  very 
likely  to  fall  to  them.  When  it  does  fall  to  them 
therefore,  they  consider  themselves  only  as  not  quite 
so  lucky  as  some  of  their  companions,  and  submit  to 
their  fortune  without  any  other  uneasiness  than  what 
may  arise  from  the  fear  of  death — a  fear  which  even,  by 
such  worthless  wretches,  we  frequently  see  can  be 
so  easily  and  so  very  completely  conquered."  A  man 
some  time  ago  was  executed  for  uttering  forged  bank- 
notes, and  the  body  was  delivered  to  his  friends.  What 
was  the  effect  of  the  example  upon  them  ?  Why,  with 
the  corpse  lying  on  a  bed  before  them,  they  were  them- 
selves seized  in  the  act  of  again  uttering  forged  bank- 
notes. The  testimony  upon  a  subject  like  this,  of  a 
person  who  has  had  probably  greater  and  better  op- 
portunities of  ascertaining  the  practical  efficiency  of 
punishments  than  any  other  individual  in  Europe,  is  of 
great  importance.  "  Capital  convicts,"  says  Elizabeth 
Fry,  "pacify  their  conscience  with  the  dangerous  and 
most  fallacious  notion,  that  the  violent  death  which 
awaits  them  will  serve  as  a  full  atonement  for  all  their 
sins."  f  It  is  their  passport  to  felicity — the  purchase- 
money  of  heaven  !  Of  this  deplorable  notion  the  effect 
is  doubly  bad.  First,  it  makes  them  comparatively 
little  afraid  of  death,  because  they  necessarily  regard 
it  as  so  much  less  an  evil ;  and,  secondly,  it  encourages 
them  to  go  on  in  the  commission  of  crimes,  because  they 
imagine  that  the  number  or  enormity  of  them,  how- 
ever great,  will  not  preclude  them  from  admission  into 
heaven.  Of  both  these  mischiefs,  the  punishment  of 
death  is  the  immediate  source.  Substitute  another 
punishment,  and  they  will  not  think    that  that  is  an 

*  Irving's  Orations,     t  Observations  on  the  visiting,  &c.,  of 
Female  Prisoners,  p.  73. 


356  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  [ESSAY  III. 

"  atonement  for  their  sins,"  and  will  not  receive  their 
present  encouragement  to  continue  their  crimes.  But 
with  respect  to  example,  this  unexceptionable  authority 
speaks  in  decided  language.  ' '  The  terror  of  example 
is  very  generally  rendered  abortive  by  the  predestinarian 
notion,  vulgarly  prevalent  among  thieves,  that  '  if 
they  are  to  be  hanged  they  are  to  be  hanged,  and  noth- 
ing can  prevent  it/"*  It  may  be  said  that  the  same 
notion  might  be  attached  to  any  other  punishment,  and 
that  thus  that  other  would  become  abortive  ;  but  there 
is  little  reason  to  expect  this,  at  least  in  the  same  de- 
gree. The  notion  is  now  connected  expressly  with 
hanging,  and  it  is  not  probable  that  the  same  notion 
would  ever  be  transferred  with  equal  power  to  another 
penalty.  Where  then  is  the  overwhelming  evidence 
of  utility,  which  alone,  even  in  the  estimate  of  ex- 
pediency, can  justify  the  punishment  of  death?  It 
cannot  be  adduced  ;  it  does  not  exist. 

But  if  capital  punishments  do  little  good,  they  do 
much  harm.  "The  frequent  public  destruction  of 
life  has  a  fearfully  hardening  effect  upon  those  whom 
it  is  intended  to  intimidate.  While  it  excites  in  them 
the  spirit  of  revenge,  it  seldom  fails  to  lower  their  esti- 
mate of  the  life  of  man,  and  renders  them  less  afraid 
of  taking  it  away  in  their  turn  by  acts  of  personal  vio- 
lence, "f  This  is  just  what  a  consideration  of  the 
principles  of  the  human  mind  would  teach  us  to  expect. 
To  familiarize  men  with  the  destruction  of  life,  is  to 
teach  them  not  to  abhor  that  destruction.  It  is  the 
legitimate  process  of  the  mind  in  other  things.  He 
who  blushes  and  trembles  the  first  time  he  utters  a  lie, 
learns  by  repetition  to  do  it  with  callous  indifference. 
Now  you  execute  a  man  in  order  to  do  good  by  the  spec- 
tacle— while  the  practical  consequence,  it  appears,  is, 

*  Observations  on  the  visiting,  &c,  of  Female  Prisoners,  p.  73. 

t  Ibid. 


CHAP.    VII.]  PUNISHMENT   OF   DEATH.  357 

that  bad  men  turn  away  from  the  spectacle  more  pre- 
pared to  commit  violence  than  before.  It  will  be  said, 
that  this  effect  is  produced  only  upon  those  who  are 
already  profligate,  and  that  a  salutary  example  is  held 
out  to  the  public.  But  the  answer  is  at  hand — The 
public  do  not  usually  begin  with  capital  crimes.  These 
are  committed  after  the  person  has  become  depraved — 
that  is,  after  he  has  arrived  at  that  state  in  which  an 
execution  will  harden  rather  than  deter  him.  We 
"  lower  their  estimate  of  the  life  of  man."  It  cannot 
be  doubted.  It  is  the  inevitable  tendency  of  executions. 
There  is  much  of  justice  in  an  observation  of  Beccaria's. 
"Is  it  not  absurd  that  the  laws  which  detect  and 
punish  homicide  should,  in  order  to  prevent  murder, 
publicly  commit  murder  themselves?"*  By  the  pro- 
cedures of  a  court,  we  virtually  and  perhaps  literally 
expatiate  upon  the  sacredness  of  human  life,  upon  the 
dreadful  guilt  of  taking  it  away — and  then  forthwith 
take  it  away  ourselves  !  It  is  no  subject  of  wonder  that 
this  "lowers  the  estimate  of  the  life  of  man."  The 
next  sentence  of  the  writer  upon  whose  testimony  I 
offer  these  comments,  is  of  tremendous  import : — 
1  •  There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  our  public  exe- 
cutions have  had  a  direct  and  positive  tendency  to  pro- 
mote both  murder  and  suicide. "  "  Why,  if  a  consider- 
able time  elapse  between  the  trial  and  the  execution, 
do  we  find  the  severity  of  the  public  changed  into  com- 
passion ?  For  the  same  reason  that  a  master,  if  he  do  not 
beat  his  slave  in  the  moment  of  resentment,  often  feels 
a  repugnance  to  the  beating  him  at  all."f  This  is 
remarkable.  If  executions  were  put  off  for  a  twelve- 
month, I  doubt  whether  the  public  would  bear  them. 
But  why  if  they  were  just  and  right  ?  Respecting  "  the 
contempt  and  indignation  with  which  every  one  looks  on 

*  Essay  on  Capital  Punishments  ;  c.  28. 
t  Godwin  :  Enq.  Pol.  Just.  v.  2,  p.  726. 


358  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  [ESSAY  III. 

an  executioner, ' '  Beccaria  says  the  reason  is,  ■ '  that  in  a 
secret  corner  of  the  mind,  in  which  the  original  impres- 
sions of  nature  are  still  preserved,  men  discover  a  senti- 
ment which  tells  them  that  their  lives  are  not  lawfully  in 
the  power  of  any  one. ' '  *  Let  him  who  has  the  power  of 
influencing  the  legislature  of  the  country  or  public 
opinion,  (and  who  has  not  ?)  consider  the  responsibility 
which  this  declaration  implies,  if  he  lifts  his  voice  for 
the  punishment  of  death  ! 

But  further  :  the  execution  of  one  offender  excites 
in  others  "  the  spirit  of  revenge."  This  is  extremely 
natural.  Many  a  soldier,  I  dare  say,  has  felt  impelled 
to  revenge  the  death  of  his  comrades  ;  and  the  member 
of  a  gang  of  thieves,  who  has  fewer  restraints  of  prin- 
ciple, is  likely  to  feel  it  too.  But  upon  whom  is  his 
revenge  inflicted  ?  Upon  the  legislature,  or  the  jury,  or 
the  witnesses  ?  No,  but  upon  the  public  or  upon  the 
first  person  whose  life  is  in  their  power,  and  which  they 
are  prompted  to  take  away.  You  execute  a  man,  then, 
in  order  to  save  the  lives  of  others  ;  and  the  effect  is, 
v  that  you  add  new  inducements  to  take  the  lives  of 
others  away. 

Of  a  system  which  is  thus  unsound — unsound  because 
it  rejects  some  of  the  plainest  dictates  of  the  moral  law 
— and  unsound  because  so  many  of  its  effects  are  bad, 
I  should  be  ready  to  conclude,  with  no  other  evidence, 
that  it  was  utterly  inexpedient  and  impolitic — that  as  it 
was  bad  in  morals,  it  was  bad  in  policy.  And  such 
appears  to  be  the  fact. — "  It  is  incontrovertibly  proved 
that  punishments  of  a  milder  and  less  injurious  nature 
are  calculated  to  produce,  for  every  good  purpose,  afar 
more  powerful  effect.'  \\ 

Finally. — "The  best  of  substitutes  for  capital  pun- 
ishment will  be  found  in  that  judicious  management  of 

*  Beccaria  :  Essay  on  Capital  Punishments,  chap.  28. 

|  Observations  on  the  visiting,  &c,  of  Female  Prisoners,  p.  75 


CHAP.    VII.]  PUNISHMENT  OE  DEATH.  359 

criminals  in  prison  which  it  is  the  object  of  the  present 
tract  to  recommend  ;"*  which  management  is  Christia?i 
management — a  system  in  which  reformation  is  made 
the  first  object,  but  in  which  it  is  found  that  in  order 
to  effect  reformation  severity  to  hardened  offenders  is 
needful.  Thus  then  we  arrive  at  the  goal : — we  begin 
with  urging  the  system  that  Christianity  dictates  as 
right ;  we  conclude  by  discovering  that,  as  it  is  the 
right  system,  so  it  is  practically  the  best. 


But  an  argument  in  favor  of  capital  punishments  has 
been  raised  from  the  Christian  Scriptures  themselves. — 
"If  I  be  an  offender,  or  have  committed  anything 
worthy  of  death,  I  refuse  not  to  die.  "f  This  is  the 
language  of  an  innocent  person  who  was  persecuted  by 
malicious  enemies.  It  was  an  assertion  of  innocence  ; 
an  assertion  that  he  had  done  nothing  worthy  of  death. 
The  case  had  no  reference  to  the  question  of  the  law- 
fulness of  capital  punishment,  but  to  the  question  of 
the  lawfulness  of  inflicting  it  upon  him.  Nor  can  it  be 
supposed  that  it  was  the  design  of  the  speaker  to  convey 
any  sanction  of  the  punishment  itself,  because  the 
design  would  have  been  wholly  foreign  to  the  occasion. 
The  argument  of  Grotius  goes  perhaps  too  far  for  his 
own  purpose.  "  If 1 be  an  offender,  or  have  done  any- 
thing worthy  of  death,  I  refuse  not  to  die."  He 
refused  not  to  die,  then,  if  he  were  an  offender,  if  he 
had  done  one  of  the  ' '  many  and  grievous  things ' ' 
which  the  Jews  charged  upon  him.  But  will  it  be  con- 
tended that  he  meant  to  sanction  the  destruction  of 
every  person  who  was  thus  "  an  offender?" — His 
enemies  were  endeavoring  to  take  his  life,  and  he,  in 
earnest  asseveration  of  his  innocence,  says,  '*  If  you 
can  fix  your  charges  upon  me,  take  it." 

*  Observations  on  the  visiting,  &c.,  of  Female  Prisoners,  p.  76. 
t  Acts,  xxv.  1 1  ;  see  Grotius  :  Rights  of  War  and  Peace. 


360  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  [ESSAY  HI. 

Grotius  adduces,  as  an  additional  evidence  of  the 
sanction  of  the  punishment  by  Christianity,  this 
passage,  "  Servants  be  subject  to  your  masters  with  all 
fear,  &c. — What  glory  is  it,  if,  when  ye  be  buffeted  for 
your  faults,  ye  shall  take  it  patiently  ?  but  if,  when  ye 
do  well,  and  suffer  for  it,  ye  take  it  patiently,  this  is 
acceptable  with  God."*  Some  arguments  disprove 
the  doctrine  which  they  are  advanced  to  support,  and 
this  surely  is  one  of  them.  It  surely  cannot  be  true 
that  Christianity  sanctions  capital  punishments,  if  this 
is  the  best  evidence  of  the  sanction  that  can  be  found. f 

Some  persons  again  suppose  that  there  is  a  sort  of 
moral  obligation  to  take  the  life  of  a  murderer : 
''Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed. ' '  This  supposition  is  an  example  of 
that  want  of  advertence  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Chris- 
tian morality,  which  in  the  first  essay  we  had  occasion 
to  notice.  Our  law  is  the  Christian  law,  and  if  Chris- 
tianity by  its  precepts  or  spirit  prohibits  the  punish- 
ment of  death,  it  cannot  be  made  right  to  Christians  by 
referring  to  a  commandment  which  was  given  to  Noah. 
There  is,  in  truth,  some  inconsistency  in  the  reason- 
ings of  those  who  urge  the  passage.  The  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  verses  of  Genesis  ninth,  each  contains  a  law 
delivered  to  Noah.  Of  these  three  laws,  we  habitually 
disregard  two  :  how  then  can  we  with  reason  insist  on 
the  authority  of  the  third  ?  % 

After  all,  if  the  command  were  in  full  force,  it  would 
not  justify  our  laws  ;  for  they  shed  the  blood  of  many 
who  have  not  shed  blood  themselves. 

*  1  Pet.  ii.  18,  20. 

f  "  Wickliffe,"  says  Priestley,  "  seems  to  have  thought  it 
wrong  to  take  away  the  life  of  a  man  on  any  account. ' ' 

%  Indeed  it  would  almost  appear  from  Genesis  ix.  5,  that  even 
accidental  homicide  was  thus  to  be  punished  with  death  :  and 
if  so,  it  is  wholly  disregarded  in  our  present  practice. 


CHAP.    VII.]  PUNISHMENT  OP  DEATH.  361 

And  this  conducts  us  to  the  observation,  that  the 
grounds  upon  which  the  United  States  of  America  still 
affix  death  to  murder  of  the  first  degree,  do  not  appear 
very  clear  ;  for  if  other  punishments  are  found  effectual 
in  deterring  from  crimes  of  all  degrees  of  enormity  up 
to  the  last,  how  is  it  shown  that  they  would  not  be 
effectual  in  the  last  also  ?  There  is  nothing  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  human  mind  to  indicate,  that  a  mur- 
derer is  influenced  by  passions  which  require  that  the 
counteracting  power  should  be  totally  different  from 
that  which  is  employed  to  restrain  every  other  crime. 
The  difference  too  in  the  personal  guilt  of  the  perpetra- 
tors of  some  other  crimes,  and  of  murder,  is  sometimes 
extremely  small.  At  any  rate,  it  is  not  so  great  as  to 
imply  a  necessity  for  a  punishment  totally  dissimilar. 
The  truth  appears  to  be,  that  men  entertain  a  sort  of 
indistinct  notion  that  murder  is  a  crime  which  requires 
a  peculiar  punishment,  which  notion  is  often  founded, 
not  upon  any  process  of  investigation,  by  which  the 
propriety  of  this  peculiar  punishment  is  discovered,  but 
upon  some  vague  ideas  respecting  the  nature  of  the 
crime  itself.  But  the  dictate  of  philosophy  is,  to  employ 
that  punishment  which  will  be  most  efficacious.  Effi- 
cacy is  the  test  of  its  propriety  ;  and  in  estimating  this 
efficacy,  the  character  of  the  crime  is  a  foreign  consid- 
eration. Again,  the  dictate  of  Christianity  is,  to  em- 
ploy that  punishment  which,  while  it  deters  the 
spectator,  reforms  the  man.  Now,  neither  philosophy 
nor  Christianity  appears  to  be  consulted  in  punishing 
murder  with  death,  because  it  is  murder.  And  it  is 
worthy  of  especial  remembrance,  that  the  purpose  for 
which  Grotius  defends  the  punishment  of  death  is,  that 
he  may  be  able  to  defend  the  practice  of  war  : — a  bad 
foundation  if  this  be  its  best  ! 

.  It  is  one  objection  to  capital  punishment  that  it  is 
absolutely  irrevocable.     If  an  innocent  man  suffers  it 


362  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  [ESSAY  III. 

is  impossible  to  recall  the  sentence  of  the  law.  Not 
that  this  consideration  alone  is  a  sufficient  argument 
against  it,  but  it  is  one  argument  amongst  the  many. 
In  a  certain  sense,  indeed,  all  personal  punishments 
are  irrevocable.  The  man  who  by  a  mistaken  verdict 
has  been  confined  twelve  months  in  a  prison,  cannot  be 
repossessed  of  the  time.  But  if  irrevocable  punishments 
cannot  be  dispensed  with,  they  should  not  be  made 
needlessly  common,  and  especially  those  should  be 
regarded  with  jealousy  which  admit  of  no  removal  or 
relaxation  in  the  event  of  subsequently  discovered 
innocence,  or  subsequent  reformation.  It  is  not  suffi- 
ciently considered  that  a  jury  or  a  court  of  justice  never 
know  that  a  prisoner  is  guilty. — A  witness  may  know 
it  who  saw  him  commit  the  act,  but  others  cannot  know 
it  who  depend  upon  testimony,  for  testimony  may  be 
mistaken  or  false.  All  verdicts  are  founded  upon  prob- 
abilities— probabilities  which,  though  they  sometimes 
approach  to  certainty,  never  attain  to  it.  Surely  it  is  a 
serious  thing  for  one  man  to  destroy  another  upon 
grounds  short  of  absolute  certainty  of  his  guilt.  There 
is  a  sort  of  indecency  attached  to  it — an  assumption  of 
a  degree  of  authority  which  ought  to  be  exercised  only 
by  Him  whose  knowledge  is  infallibly  true.  It  is  un- 
happily certain  that  some  have  been  put  to  death  for 
actions  which  they  never  committed.  At  one  assizes, 
we  believe,  not  less  than  six  persons  were  hanged,  of 
whom  it  was  afterwards  discovered  that  they  were 
entirely  innocent.  A  deplorable  instance  is  given  by 
Dr.  Smollett: — "Rape  and  murder  were  perpetrated 
upon  an  unfortunate  woman  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Iyondon,  and  an  innocent  man  suffered  death  for  this 
complicated  outrage,  while  the  real  criminals  assisted 
at  his  execution,  heard  him  appeal  to  Heaven  for  his 
innocence,  and  in  the  character  of  friends  embraced 
him  while  he  stood  on  the  brink  of  eternity."*  Others 
*  Hist,  of  Eng.  v.  3,  p.  318. 


CHAP.   VII.]  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.  363 

equally  innocent,  but  whose  innocence  has  never  been 
made  known,  have  doubtless  shared  the  same  fate. 
These  are  tremendous  considerations,  and  ought  to 
make  men  solemnly  pause  before,  upon  grounds  neces- 
sarily uncertain,  they  take  away  that  life  which  God 
has  given,  and  which  they  cannot  restore. 

Of  the  merely  philosophical  speculations  respecting 
the  rectitude  of  capital  punishments,  whether  affirma- 
tive or  negative,  I  would  say  little  ;  for  they  in  truth 
deserve  little.  One  advantage  indeed  attends  a  brief 
review — that  the  reader  will  perceive  how  little  the 
speculations  of  philosophers  will  aid  us  in  the  investi- 
gation of  a  Christian  question. 

The  philosopher,  however,  would  prove  what  the 
Christian  cannot,  and  Mably  accordingly  says,  "  In  the 
state  of  nature,  I  have  a  right  to  take  the  life  of  him 
who  lifts  his  arm  against  mine.  This  right,  upo?i 
entering  into  society,  I  surrender  to  the  magistrate. ' '  If 
we  conceded  the  truth  of  the  first  position,  (which  we 
do  not,)  the  conclusion  from  it  is  an  idle  sophism  ;  for 
it  is  obviously  preposterous  to  say,  that  because  I  have 
a  right  to  take  the  life  of  a  man  who  will  kill  me  if  I 
do  not  kill  him,  the  state,  which  is  in  no  such  danger, 
has  a  right  to  do  the  same.  That  danger  which 
constitutes  the  alleged  right  in  the  individual, 
does  not  exist  in  the  case  of  the  state.  The  foun- 
dation of  the  right  is  gone,  and  where  can  be  the 
right  itself?  Having,  however,  been  thus  told  that  the 
state  has  a  right  to  kill,  we  are  next  informed,  by 
Filangieri,  that  the  criminal  has  no  right  to  live.  He 
says,  "  If  I  have  a  right  to  kill  another  man,  he  has  lost 
his  right  to  life."*  Rousseau  goes  a  little  further. 
He  tells  us,  that  in  consequence  of  the  u  social  con- 
tract ' '  which  we  make  with  the  sovereign  on  entering 
into  society,  "Life  is  a  conditional  grant  of  the 
*  Montagu  on  Punishment  of  Death. 


364  PUNISHMENT  OF  DEATH.'  [ESSAY  III. 

state  :"*  so  that  we  hold  our  lives,  it  seems,  only  as 
1 '  tenants  at  will, ' '  and  must  give  them  up  whenever 
their  owner,  the  state,  requires  them.  The  reader  has 
probably  hitherto  thought  that  he  retained  his  head  by 
some  other  tenure. 

The  right  of  taking  an  offender's  life  being  thus 
proved,  Mably  shows  us  how  its  exercise  becomes  ex- 
pedient. "A  murderer,"  says  he,  "in  taking  away 
his  enemy's  life,  believes  he  does  him  the  greatest  possible 
evil.  Death,  then,  in  the  murderer's  estimation,  is  the 
greatest  of  evils.  By  the  fear  of  death,  therefore,  the 
excesses  of  hatred  and  revenge  must  be  restrained."  If 
language  wilder  than  this  can  be  held,  Rousseau,  I 
think ,  holds  it.  He  says, ' '  The  preservation  of  both  sides 
(the  criminal  and  the  state)  is  incompatible  ;  one  of 
the  two  must  perish."  How  it  happens  that  a  nation 
"  must  perish,"  if  a  convict  is  not  hanged,  the  reader, 
I  suppose,  will  not  know.  Even  philosophy,  however 
concedes  as  much:  " Absolute  necessity  alone,'"  says 
Pastoret,  "  can  justify  the  punishment  of  death  ;"  and 
Rousseau  himself  acknowledges  that ' '  we  have  no  right 
to  put  to  death,  even  for  the  sake  oj  example,  any  but 
those  who  cannot  be  permitted  to  live  without  danger. ' ' 
Beccaria  limits  the  right  to  one  specific  case — and  in 
doing  this  he  appears  to  sacrifice  his  own  principle, 
(deduced  from  that  splendid  fiction,  the  "social  con- 
tract,") which  is,  that  "the  punishment  of  death  is 
not  authorized  by  any  right  : — no  such  right  exists. ' ' 

For  myself,  I  perceive  little  value  in  such  specula- 
tions to  whatever  conclusions  they  lead,  for  there  are 
shorter  and  surer  roads  to  truth  ;  but  it  is  satisfactory  to 
find  that,  even  upon  the  principles  of  such  philosophers, 
the  right  to  put  criminals  to  death  is  not  easily  made  out. 


The  argument,  then,  respecting  the  punishment  of 
death  is  both  distinct  and  short. 
*  Contr.  Soc.  ii.  5,  Montagu. 


CHAP.    VIII.]         REUGrOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  365 

It  rejects,  by  its  very  nature,  a  regard  to  the  first 
and  greatest  object  of  punishment. 

It  does  not  attain  either  of  the  other  objects  so  well 
as  they  may  be  attained  by  other  means. 

It  is  attended  with  numerous  evils  peculiarly  its  own. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

The  primitive  church — The  established  church  of  Ireland — 
America — Advantages  and  disadvantages  of  established 
churches — Alliance  of  a  church  with  the  state — Persecution 
generally  the  growth  of  religious  establishments — State  reli- 
gions injurious  to  the  civil  welfare  of  a  people — Voluntary 
payment. 

A  large  number  of  persons  embark  from  Europe, 
and  colonize  an  uninhabited  territory  in  the  South  Sea. 
They  erect  a  government — suppose  a  republic — and 
make  all  persons,  of  whatever  creed,  eligible  to  the 
legislature.  The  community  prospers  and  increases. 
In  process  of  time  a  member  of  the  legislature,  who  is 
a  disciple  of  John  Wesley,  persuades  himself  that  it 
will  tend  to  the  promotion  of  religion  that  the  preachers 
of  Methodism  should  be  supported  by  a  national  tax  ; 
that  their  stipends  should  be  sufficiently  ample  to  pre- 
vent them  from  necessary  attention  to  any  business  but 
that  of  religion  ;  and  that  accordingly  they  shall  be 
precluded  from  the  usual  pursuits  of  commerce  and 
from  the  professions.  He  proposes  the  measure.  It  is 
contended  against  by  the  Episcopalian  members,  and 
the  Independents,  and  the  Catholics,  and  the  Unitarians 
— by  all  but-  the  adherents  to  his  own  creed.  They 
insist  upon  the  equality  of  civil  and  religious  rights, 


366  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

but  in  vain.  The  majority  prove  to  be  Methodists  ; 
they  support  the  measure  :  the  law  is  enacted  ;  and 
Methodism  becomes,  thenceforth,  the  religion  of  the 
state.     This  is  a  religious  establishment. 

But  it  is  a  religious  establishment  in  its  best  form  ; 
and,  perhaps,  none  ever  existed  of  which  the  constitu- 
tion was  so  simple  and  so  pure.  During  one  portion  of 
the  papal  history,  the  Romish  church  was  indeed  not  so 
much  an  ' '  establishment ' '  of  the  state  as  a  separate 
and  independent  constitution.  For  though  some  species 
of  alliance  subsisted,  yet  the  Romanists  did  not  acknow- 
ledge, as  Protestants  now  do,  that  the  power  of  estab- 
lishing  a  religion  resides  in  the  state. 

In  the  present  day  other  immunities  are  possessed  by 
ecclesiastical  establishments  than  those  which  are 
necessary  to  constitute  the  institution — such,  for  exam- 
ple, as  that  of  exclusive  eligibility  to  the  legislature  : 
and  other  alliances  with  the  civil  power  exist  than  that 
which  necessarily  results  from  any  preference  of  a  par- 
ticular faith — such  as  that  of  placing  ecclesiastical 
patronage  in  the  hands  of  a  government,  or  of  those 
who  are  under  its  influence.  From  these  circumstances 
it  happens,  that  in  enquiring  into  the  propriety  of  relig- 
ious establishments,  we  cannot  confine  ourselves  to 
the  enquiry  whether  they  are  proper  as  they  usually 
exist.  And  this  is  so  much  the  more  needful,  because 
there  is  little  reason  to  expect  that  when  once  an  eccle- 
siastical establishment  has  been  erected — when  once  a 
particular  church  has  been  selected  for  the  preference 
and  patronage  of  the  civil  power — that  preference  and 
patronage  will  be  confined  to  those  circumstances 
which  are  necessary  to  the  subsistence  of  an  establish- 
ment at  all. 

It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  it  matters  nothing  to 
the  existence  of  an  established  church,  what  the  faith  of 
that  church  is,  or  what  is  the  form  of  its  government. 


CHAP.   VIII.]         RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  367 

It  is  not  the  creed  which  constitutes  the  estab- 
lishment, but  the  preference  of  the  civil  power.  Our 
business  is  not  with  churches  but  with  church  estab- 
lishments. 

The  actual  history  of  religious  establishments  in 
Christian  countries,  does  not  differ  in  essence  from  that 
which  we  have  supposed  in  the  South  Sea.  They  have 
been  erected  by  the  influence  or  the  assistance  of  the 
civil  power.  In  one  country  a  religion  may  have  owed 
its  political  supremacy  to  the  superstitions  of  a  prince  ; 
and  in  another  to  his  policy  or  ambition  :  but  the  effect 
has  been  similar.  Whether  superstition  or  policy,  the 
contrivances  of  a  priesthood,  or  the  fortuitous  predomi- 
nance of  a  party,  have  given  rise  to  the  established 
church,  is  of  comparatively  little  consequence  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  institution. 

The  only  ground  upon  which  it  appears  that  relig- 
ious establishments  can  be  advocated  are,  first,  that  of 
example  or  approbation  in  the  primitive  churches  ; 
and,  secondly,  that  of  public  utility. 

I.  The  primitive  church  was  not  a  religious  estab- 
lishment in  any  sense  or  in  any  degree.  No  establish- 
ment existed  until  the  church  had  lost  much  of  its 
purity.  Nor  is  there  any  expression  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, direct  or  indirect,  which  would  lead  a  reader  to 
suppose  that  Christ  or  his  apostles  regarded  an  estab- 
lishment as  an  eligible  institution.  "We  find,  in  his 
religion  no  scheme  of  building  up  a  hierarchy,  or  of  min- 
istering to  the  views  of  human  governments." — "Our 
religion,  as  it  came  out  of  the  hands  of  its  Founder  and 
his  apostles,  exhibited  a  complete  abstraction  from  all 
views  either  of  ecclesiastical  or  civil  policy.'''1*'  The  evi- 
dence which  these  facts  supply  respecting  the  moral 
character  of  religious  establishments,  whatever  be  its 
weight,  tends  manifestly  to  show  that  that  character  is 
*  Paley  :  Evidences  of  Christianity,  p.  2,  c.  2. 


368  REUGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

not  good.  I  do  not  say  because  Christianity  exhibited 
this  "complete  abstraction,"  that  it  therefore  neces- 
sarily condemned  establishments  ;  but  I  say  that  the 
bearing  and  the  tendency  of  this  negative  testimony  is 
against  them. 

In  the  discourses  and  writings  of  the  first  teachers  of 
our  religion,  we  find  such  absolute  disinterestedness, 
so  little  disposition  to  assume  political  superiority,  that 
to  have  become  the  members  of  an  established  church 
would  certainly  have  been  inconsistent  in  them.  It  is 
indeed  almost  inconceivable  that  they  could  ever  have 
desired  the  patronage  of  the  state  for  themselves  or  for 
their  converts.  No  man  conceives  that  Paul  or  John 
could  have  participated  in  the  exclusion  of  any  portion 
of  the  Christian  church  from  advantages  which  they 
themselves  enjoyed.  Every  man  perceives  that  to  have 
done  this,  would  have  been  to  assume  a  new  character, 
a  character  which  they  had  never  exhibited  before,  and 
which  was  incongruous  with  their  former  principles 
and  motives  of  action.  But  why  is  this  incongruous 
with  the  apostolic  character  unless  it  is  incongruous 
with  Christianity  ?  Upon  this  single  ground,  therefore, 
there  is  reason  for  the  sentiment  of  ' '  many  well-in- 
formed persons,  that  it  seems  extremely  questionable 
whether  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  admits  of  any  civil 
establishment  at  all."* 

I  lay  stress  upon  these  considerations.  We  all  know 
that  much  may  be  learnt  respecting  human  duty  by  a 
contemplation  of  the  spirit  and  temper  of  Christianity 
as  it  was  exhibited  by  its  first  teachers.  When  the 
spirit  and  temper  is  compared  with  the  essential  char- 
acter of  religious  establishments,  thev  are  found  to  be 
incongruous — foreign  to  one  another — having  no  nat- 
ural relationship  or  similarity.  I  should  regard  such 
facts,  in  reference  to  any  question  of  rectitude,  as  of 
*  Simpson's  Plea  for  Religion  and  the  Sacred  Writings. 


CHAP.    VIII.]         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  369 

great  importance  ;  but  upon  a  subject  so  intimately 
connected  with  religion  itself,  the  importance  is  pecul- 
iarly great. 

II.  The  question  of  the  utility  of  religious  estabr 
lishments  is  to  be  decided  by  a  comparison  of  their 
advantages  and  their  evils. 

Of  their  advantages,  the  first  and  greatest  appears  to 
be  that  they  provide,  or  are  assumed  to  provide,  relig- 
ious instruction  for  the  whole  community.  If  this 
instruction  be  left  by  the  state  to  be  cared  for  by  each 
Christian  church  as  it  possesses  the  zeal  or  the  means, 
it  may  be  supposed  that  many  districts  will  be  destitute 
of  any  public  religious  instruction.  At  least  the  state 
cannot  be  assured  before  hand  that  every  district  will 
be  supplied.  And  when  it  is  considered  how  great  is 
the  importance  of  regular  public  worship  to  the  virtue 
of  a  people,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  that  a  scheme  which, 
by  destroying  an  establishment,  would  make  that  in- 
struction inadequate  or  uncertain,  is  so  far  to  be 
regarded  as  of  questionable  expediency.  But  the  effect 
which  would  be  produced  by  dispensing  with  establish- 
ments is  to  be  estimated,  so  far  as  is  in  our  power,  by 
facts.  Now  dissenters  are  in  the  situation  of  separate 
unestablished  churches.  If  they  do  not  provide  for  the 
public  officers  of  religion  voluntarily,  they  will  not  be 
provided  for.  Yet  where  is  any  considerable  body  of 
dissenters  to  be  found  who  do  not  provide  themselves 
with  a  chapel  and  a  preacher  ?  And  if  those  churches 
which  are  not  established,  do  in  fact  provide  public  in- 
struction, how  is  it  shown  that  it  would  not  be  provided 
although  there  were  no  established  religion  in  a  state  ? 
Besides,  the  dissenters  from  an  established  church  pro- 
vide this  under  peculiar  disadvantages  ;  for  after  pay- 
ing, in  common  with  others,  their  quota  to  the  state 
religion,  they  have  to  pay  in  addition  to  their  own. 
But  perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  dissenters  from  a  state 


370  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

religion  are  actuated  by  a  zeal  with  which  the  profes- 
sors of  that  religion  are  not  ;  and  that  the  legal  pro- 
vision supplies  the  deficiency  of  zeal.  If  this  be  said, 
the  inquiry  imposes  itself — How  does  this  dispropor- 
tion of  zeal  arise  ?  Why  should  dissenters  be  more  zeal- 
ous than  churchmen  ?  What  account  can  be  given  of 
the  matter,  but  that  there  is  something  in  the  patron- 
age of  the  state  which  induces  apathy  upon  the  church 
that  it  prefers?  One  other  account  may  indeed  be 
offered — that  to  be  a  dissenter  is  to  be  a  positive  relig- 
ionist, whilst  to  be  a  churchman  is  frequently  only  to 
be  nothing  else  ;  that  an  establishment  embraces  all 
who  are  not  embraced  by  others  ;  and  that  if  those 
whom  other  churches  do  not  include  were  not  cared  for 
by  the  state  religion,  they  would  not  be  cared  for  at 
all.  This  is  an  argument  of  apparent  weight,  but  the 
effect  of  reasoning  is  to  diminish  that  weight.  For 
what  is  meant  by  "including,"  by  "caring  for,"  the 
indifferent  and  irreligious  ?  An  established  church  only 
offers  them  instruction  ;  it  does  not  ' '  compel  them  to 
come  in,"  and  we  have  just  seen  that  this  offer  is  made 
by  unestablished  churches  also.  Who  doubts  whether 
in  a  district  that  is  sufficient  to  fill  a  temple  of  the  state 
religion,  there  would  be  found  persons  to  offer  a  temple 
of  public  worship  though  the  state  did  not  compel  it  ? 
Who  doubts  whether  this  would  be  the  case  if  the  dis- 
trict were  inhabited  by  dissenters  ?  and  if  it  would  not 
be  done  supposing  the  inhabitants  to  belong  to  the  state 
religion,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  there  is  a 
tendency  to  indifference  resulting  from  the  patronage 
of  the  state. 

To  estimate  the  relative  influence  of  religion  in  two 
countries  is  no  easy  task.  Yet,  I  believe,  if  we  com- 
pare its  influence  in  the  United  States  with  that  which 
it  possesses  in  most  of  the  European  countries  which 
possess   state   religions,    it   will    be   found    that    the 


CHAP.    VIII.]         REUGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  37 1 

balance  is  in  favor  of  the  community  in  which  there  is  no 
established  church  :  at  any  rate,  the  balance  is  not  so 
much  against  it  as  to  afford  any  evidence  in  favor  of  a 
state  religion.  A  traveller  in  America  has  remarked 
' '  There  is  more  religion  in  the  United  States  than  in 
England,  and  more  in  England  than  in  Italy.  The 
closer  the  monopoly,  the  less  abundant  the  supply. ' '  * 
Another  traveller  writes  almost  as  if  he  had  anticipated 
the  present  disquisition — "  It  has  been  often  said,  that 
the  disinclination  of  the  heart  to  religious  truth, 
renders  a  state  establishment  absolutely  necessary  for 
the  purpose  of  Christianizing  the  country.  Ireland  and 
America  can  furnish  abundant  evidence  of  the  fallacy 
of  such  an  hypothesis.  In  the  one  country  we  see  an 
ecclesiastical  establishment  of  the  most  costly  descrip- 
tion utterly  inoperative  in  dispelling  ignorance  or  re- 
futing error  ;  in  the  other  no  establishment  of  any  kind, 
and  yet  religion  making  daily  and  hourly  progress,  pro- 
moting enquiry,  diffusing  knowledge,  strengthening 
the  weak,  and  mollifying  the  hardened. ' !  f 

In  immediate  connection  with  this  subject  is  the 
argument  that  Dr.  Paley  places  at  the  head  of  those 
which  he  advances  in  favor  of  religious  establishments 
— that  the  knowledge  and  profession  of  Christianity  can- 
not be  upholden  without  a  clergy  supported  by  legal  pro- 
vision, and  belonging  to  o?ie  sect  of  Christians. X  The 
justness  of  this  proposition  is  fo7inded  upon  the  necessity 
of  research.  It  is  said  that  ' '  Christianity  is  an  histori- 
cal religion,"  and  that  the  truth  of  its  history  must  be 
investigated ;  that  in  order  to  vindicate  its  authority 
and  to  ascertain  its  truths,  leisure  and  education  and 
learning  are  indispensable — so  that  such  an  ' '  order  of 
clergy  is  necessary  to  perpetuate  the  evidences  of  reve- 
lation, and  to  interpret  the  obscurity  of  those  ancient 

*  Hall.  f  Duncan's  Trav.  in  America. 

|  See  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  6  c.  10. 


372  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY   III. 

writings  in  which  the  religion  is  contained. ' '  To  all 
this  there  is  one  plain  objection,  that  when  once  the 
evidences  of  religion  are  adduced  and  made  public, 
when  once  the  obscurity  of  the  ancient  writings  is  in- 
terpreted, the  work,  so  far  as  discovery  is  concerned, 
is  done  ;  and  it  can  hardly  be  imagined  that  an  estab- 
lished clergy  is  necessary  in  perpetuity  to  do  that 
which  in  its  own  nature  can  be  done  but  once.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  validity  of  this  argument  in 
other  times,  when  few  but  the  clergy  possessed  any 
learning,  or  when  the  evidences  of  religion  had  not 
been  sought  out,  it  possesses  little  validity  now.  These 
evidences  are  brought  before  the  world  in  a  form  so 
clear *and  accessible  to  literary  and  good  men,  that,  in 
the  present  state  of  society,  there  is  little  reason  to 
fear  they  will  be  lost  for  want  of  an  established  church. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  with  respect  to  our  own 
country,  the  best  defences  of  Christianity  which  exist  in 
the  language,  have  not  been  the  work  either  of  the 
established  clergy  or  of  members  of  the  established 
church.  The  expression,  that  such  "an  order  of 
clergy  is  necessary  to  perpetuate  the  evidences  of  reve- 
lation," appears  to  contain  an  illusion.  Evidences  can 
in  no  other  sense  be  perpetuated  than  by  being  again  and 
again  brought  before  the  public.  If  this  be  the  meaning, 
it  belongs  rather  to  the  teaching  of  religious  truths  than 
to  their  discovery  ;  but  it  is  upon  the  discovery,  it  is 
upon  the  opportunity  of  research,  that  the  argument  is 
founded  :  and  it  is  particularly  to  be  noticed,  that  this 
is  the  primary  argument  which  Paley  adduces  in  decid- 
ing ' '  the  first  and  most  fundamental  question  upon  the 
subject." 

It  pleases  Providence  to  employ  human  agency  in  the 
vindication  and  diffusion  of  his  truth  ;  but  to  employ 
the  expression  ' '  the  knowledge  and  profession  of 
Christianity ' '     cannot     be      upholden     without      an 


CHAP.    VIII.]         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  373 

established  clergy,  approaches  to  irreverence.  Even  a  re- 
jector of  Christianity  says,  "  If  public  worship  be  con- 
formable to  reason,  reason  without  doubt  will  prove 
adequate  to  its  vindication  and  support.  If  it  be  from 
God  it  is  profanation  to  imagine  that  it  stands  in  need 
of  the  alliance  of  the  state."  *  And  it  is  clearly  un- 
true in  fact ;  because,  without  such  a  clergy,  it  is 
actually  upheld,  and  because,  during  the  three  first 
centuries,  the  religion  subsisted  and  spread  and  pros- 
pered without  any  encouragement  from  the  state.  And 
it  is  remarkable,  too,  that  the  diffusion  of  Christianity 
in  our  own  times  'in  pagan  nations,  is  effected  less  by 
the  clergy  of  established  churches  than  by  others,  f 

One  particular  manner  in  which  the  establishment  of 
a  church  injures  the  character  of  the  church  itself  is, 
by  the  temptation  which  it  holds  out  to  equivocation 
or  hypocrisy.  It  is  necessary  to  the  preference  of  the 
teachers  of  a  particular  sect,  that  there  should  be  some 
means  of  discovering  who  belong  to  that  sect :"—  there 
must  be  some  test.  Before  the  man  who  is  desirous  of 
undertaking  the  ministerial  office,  there  are  placed  two 
roads,  one  of  which  conducts  to  those  privileges  which 
a  state  religion  enjoys,  and  the  other  does  not.  The 
latter  may  be  entered  by  all  who  will  :  the  former  by 
tho.se  only  who  affirm  their  belief  of  the  rectitude  of 
some  church  forms  or  of  some  points  of  theology.  It 
requires  no  argument  to  prove  that  this  is  to  tempt  men 
to  affirm  that  which  they  do  not  believe  :  that  it  is  to 
say  to  the  man  who  does  not  believe  the  stipulated 
points,  Here  is  money  for  you  if  you  will  violate  your 

*  Godwin's  Pol.  Just.  2,  608. 

f  In  the  preceding  discussion,  I  have  left  out  all  reference  to 
the  proper  qualification  or  appointment  of  Christian  ministers, 
and  have  assumed  (but  without  conceding)  that  the  magistrate 
is  at  liberty  to  adjust  those  matters  if  he  pleases. 


374  REUGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

conscience.  By  some  the  invitation  will  be  accepted  ;  * 
and  what  is  the  result?  Why  that,  just  as  they  are 
going  publicly  to  insist  upon  the  purity  and  sanctity  of 
the  moral  law,  they  violate  that  law  themselves.  The 
injury  which  is  thus  done  to  a  Christian  church  by 
establishing  it,  is  negative  as  well  as  positive.  You 
not  only  tempt  some  men  to  equivocation  or  hypocrisy, 
but  exclude  from  the  office  others  of  sounder  integrity. 
Two  persons,  both  of  whom  do  not  assent  to  the  pre- 
scribed points,  are  desirous  of  entering  the  church. 
One  is  upright  and  conscientious,  the  other  subservient 
and  unscrupulous.  An  establishment  excludes  the 
good  man  and  admits  the  bad.  ' '  Though  some  pur- 
poses of  order  and  tranquillity  may  be  answered  by  the 
establishment  of  creeds  and  confessions,  yet  they  are  at 
all  times  attended  with  serious  inconveniences  :  they 
check  enquiry  ;  they  violate  liberty  ;  they  ensnare  the 
consciences  of  the  clergy,  by  holding  out  temptations 
to  prevarication."  f 

And  with  respect  to  the  habitual  accommodation  of 
the  exercise  of  the  ministry  to  the  desires  of  the  state 
it  is  manifest  that  an  enlightened  and  faithful  minister 
may  frequently  find  himself  restrained  by  a  species  of 
political  leading-strings.  He  had  not  the  full  command 
of  his  intellectual  and  religious  attainments.  He  may 
not  perhaps  communicate  the  whole  counsel  of  God.  % 
It  was  formerly  co?iceded  to  the  English  clergy  that  they 
might  preach  against  the  horrors  and  impolicy  of  wrar, 

*  "  Chilli ngworth  declared  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Sheldon,  that  if 
he  subscribed  he  subscribed  his  own  damnation,  and  yet  in  no 
long  space  of  time  he  actually  did  subscribe  to  the  articles  of  the 
church  again  and  again."     Simpson's  plea. 

t  Paley  :  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  6,  c.  10. 

X  li  Honest  and  disinterested  boldness  in  the  path  of  duty  is 
one  of  the  first  requisites  of  a  minister  of  the  gospel."  Gis- 
borne.  But  how  shall  they  be  thus  disinterested  ?  Mem.  in 
the  MS. 


CHAP.    VIII.]         REWGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  375 

provided  they  were  not  chaplains  to  regiments  or  in  the 
navy.  Conceded !  Then  if  the  state  had  pleased,  it 
might  have  withheld  the  concession  ;  and  accordingly 
from  some  the  state  did  withhold  it.  They  were  pro- 
hibited to  preach  against  that,  against  which  the 
apostles  wrote  !  What  would  these  apostles  have  said 
if  a  state  had  bidden  them  keep  silence  respecting  the 
most  unchristian  custom  in  the  world  ?  They  would 
have  said,  Whether  we  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than 
man,  judge  ye.  What  would  they  have  done?  They 
would  have  gone  away  and  preached  against  it  as  be- 
fore. One  question  more  should  be  asked — What 
would  they  have  said  to  an  alliance  which  thus  brought 
the  Christian  minister  under  bondage  to  the  state  ? 

It  is  sufficiently  manifest,  that  whatever  tends  to 
diminish  the  virtue,  or  to  impeach  the  character,  of  the 
ministers  of  religion,  must  tend  to  diminish  the  influ- 
ence of  religion  upon  mankind.  If  the  teacher  is  not 
good,  we  are  not  to  expect  goodness  in  the  taught.  If 
a  man  enters  the  church  with  impure  or  unworthy  mo- 
tives, he  cannot  do  his  duty  when  he  is  there.  If  he 
makes  religion  subservient  to  interest  in  his  own  prac- 
tice, he  cannot  eifectually  teach  others  to  make  relig- 
ion paramount  to  all.  Men  associate  (they  ought  to 
do  it  less)  the  idea  of  religion  with  that  of  its  teachers  ; 
and  their  respect  for  one  is  freqently  measured  by  their 
respect  for  the  other.  Now,  that  the  effect  of  religious 
establishments  has  been  to  depress  their  teachers  in  the 
estimation  of  mankind,  cannot  be  disputed.  The  effect 
is,  in  truth,  inevitable.  And  it  is  manifest  that  what- 
ever conveys  disrespectful  ideas  of  religion  diminishes 
its  influence  upon  the  human  mind.  In  brief,  we  have 
seen  that  to  establish  a  religion  is  morally  pernicious  to 
its  ministers  ;  and  whatever  is  injurious  to  them  dimin- 
ishes the  power  of  religion  in  the  world. 

Christianity  is   a  religion  of   good-will     and    kind 


376  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

affections.  Its  essence,  so  far  as  the  intercourse  of  society 
is  concerned,  is  love.  Whatever  diminishes  good-will 
and  kind  affections  amongst  Christians,  attacks  the 
essence  of  Christianity.  Now,  religious  establishments 
do  this.  They  generate  ill-will,  heart-burnings,  ani- 
mosities— those  very  things  which  our  religion  depre- 
cates more  almost  than  any  other.  It  is  obvious  that 
if  a  fourth  or  a  third  of  a  community  think  they 
are  unreasonably  excluded  from  privileges  which  the 
other  parts  enjoy,  feelings  of  jealousy  or  envy  are 
likely  to  be  generated.  If  the  minority  are  obliged  to 
pay  to  the  support  of  a  religion  they  disapprove,  these 
feelings  are  likely  to  be  exacerbated.  They  soon 
become  reciprocal  ;  attacks  are  made  by  one  party  and 
repelled  by  another,  till  there  arises  an  habitual  sense 
of  unkindness  or  ill-will.*  The  deduction  from  the 
practical  influence  of  religion  upon  the  minds  of  men 
which  this  effect  of  religious  establishments  occasions, 
is  great.     The  evil,  I  trust,  is  diminishing  in  the  world  ; 

*  I  once  met  with  rather  a  grotesque  definition  of  religious 
dissent,  but  it  illustrates  my  proposition  :—"  Dissenterism  " — 
that  is,  "  systematic  opposition  to  the  established  religion." 

"The  placing  all  the  religious  sects  (in  America)  upon  an 
equal  footing  with  respect  to  the  government  of  the  country, 
has  effectually  secured  the  peace  of  the  community,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  has  essentially  promoted  the  interests  of  truth  and 
virtue." — Mem.  Dr.  Priestley,  p.  175.     Mem.  in  the  MS. 

Pennsylvania. — "  Although  there  are  so  many  sects  and  such 
a  difference  of  religious  opinions  in  this  province,  it  is  surpris- 
ing the  harmony  which  subsists  among  them  ;  they  consider 
themselves  as  children  of  the  same  father,  and  live  like  brethren 
because  they  have  the  liberty  of  thinking  like  men  ;  to  this 
pleasing  harmony,  in  a  great  measure  is  to  be  attributed  the 
rapid  and  flourishing  state  of  Pennsylvania  above  all  the  other 
provinces."  Travels  through  the  interior  parts  of  North  Amer- 
ica, by  an  officer.  1791.  Dond.  The  officer  was  Thomas 
Aubery,  who  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Americans.  Mem.  in 
the  MS. 


CHAP.    VI I  I.J         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  377 

but  then  the  diminution  results,  not  from  religious 
establishments,  but  from  that  power  of  Christianity 
which  prevails  against  these  evils. 

III.  Then  as  to  the  effect  of  religious  establishments 
upon  the  civil  welfare  of  a  state — we  know  that  the 
connection  between  religious  and  civil  welfare  is  inti- 
mate and  great.  Whatever  therefore  diminishes  the 
influence  of  religion  upon  a  people,  diminishes  their 
general  welfare.  In  addition,  however,  to  this  general 
consideration,  there  are  some  particular  modes  of  the 
injurious  effects  of  religious  establishments  which  it 
may  be  proper  to  notice. 

And,  first,  religious  establishments  are  incompatible 
with  complete  religious  liberty.  This  consideration  we 
requested  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  when  the  question 
of  religious  liberty  was  discussed.*  "If  an  establish- 
ment be  right,  religious  liberty  is  not ;  and  if  religious 
liberty  be  right,  an  establishment  is  not."  Whatever 
arguments  therefore  exist  to  prove  the  rectitude  of  com- 
plete religious  liberty,  they  prove  at  the  same  time  the 
wrongness  of  religious  establishments.  Nor  is  this 
aM  ;  for  it  is  the  manifest  tendency  of  these  establish- 
ments to  withhold  an  increase  of  religious  liberty,  even 
when  on  other  grounds  it  would  be  granted.  The 
secular  interests  of  the  state  religion  are  set  in  array 
against  an  increase  of  liberty.  If  the  established  church 
allows  other  churches  to  approach  more  nearly  to  an 
equality  with  itself,  its  own  relative  eminence  is  dimin- 
ished ;  and  if  by  any  means  the  state  religion  adds 
to  its  own  privileges,  it  is  by  deducting  from 
the  privileges  of  the  rest.  The  state  religion  is,  be- 
sides, afraid  to  dismiss  any  part  even  of  its  confessedly 
useless  privileges,  lest,  when  an  alteration  is  begun,  it 
should  not  easily  be  stopped.  And  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  it  is  temporal  rather  than  religious 
*  Essay  3,  c.  4. 


378  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY    III. 

considerations— interest  rather  than  Christianity— which 
now  occasions  restrictions  and  disabilities  and  tests. 

In  conformity  with  these  views,  persecution  has  gen- 
erally been  the  work  of  religious  establishments.  In- 
deed, some  alliance  or  some  countenance  at  least  from 
the  state  is  necessary  to  a  systematic  persecution. 
Popular  outrage  may  persecute  men  on  account  of  their 
religion,  as  it  often  has  done  ;  but  fixed  stated  perse- 
cutions have  perhaps  always  been  the  work  of  the  relig- 
ion of  the  state.  It  was  the  state  religion  of  Rome 
that  persecuted  the  first  Christians ;  not  to  mention 
that  it  was  the  state  religion  of  Judea  that  put  our 
Saviour  himself  to  death. — "  Who  was  it  that  crucified 
the  Saviour  of  the  world  for  attempting  to  reform  the 
religion  of  his  country  ?  The  Jewish  priesthood. — Who 
was  it  that  drowned  the  altars  of  their  idols  with  the 
blood  of  Christians  for  attempting  to  abolish  paganism  ? 
The  pagan  priesthood. — Who  was  it  that  persecuted  to 
flames  and  death  those  who,  in  the  time  of  Wickliffe 
and  his  followers,  labored  to  reform  the  errors  of 
Popery?  The  Popish  priesthood. — Who  was  it,  and 
who  is  it  that,  both  in  England  and  in  Ireland  since 
the  Reformation — but  I  check  my  hand,  being  unwil- 
ling to  reflect  upon  the  dead,  or  to  exasperate  the  liv- 
ing."* We  also  are  unwilling  to  reflect  upon  or  to 
exasperate,  but  our  business  is  with  plain  truth.  Who, 
then,  was  it  that  since  the  Reformation  has  persecuted 
dissentients  from  its  creed,  and  who  is  it  that  at  this  hour 
thinks  and  speaks  of  them  with  unchristian  antipathy  ? 
The  English  priesthood.  It  was,  and  it  is,  the  state 
religion  in  some  European  countries  that  now  perse- 
cutes dissenters  from  its  creed.  It  was  the  state  relig- 
ion in  this  country  that  persecuted  the  Protestants ; 
since  Protestantism  has  been  established,  it  is  the  state 

*  Miscellaneous  Tracts  by  Richard  Watson,  D.  D.,  Bishop  of 
Landaff,  v.  2. 


CHAP.   VIII.]         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  ^79 

religion  which  has  persecuted  Protestant  dissenters. 
Is  this  the  fault  principally  of  the  faith  of  these 
churches,  or  of  their  alliance  with  the  state  ?  No  man 
can  be  in  doubt  for  an  answer. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  advantages  atten- 
dant on  the  voluntary  system  which  that  of  a  legal 
provision  does  not  possess. 

But  this  does  not  imply  that  even  voluntary  pay- 
ment is  conformable  with  the  dignity  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  with  its  usefulness,  or  with  the  requisitions 
of  the  Christian  law. 

And  heie  I  am  disposed,  in  the  outset,  to  acknowl- 
edge that  the  question  of  payment  is  involved  in  an 
antecedent  question — the  necessary  qualifications  of  a 
Christian  minister.  If  one  of  these  necessary  qualifica- 
tions be,  that  he  should  devote  his  youth  and  early 
manhood  to  theological  studies,  or  to  studies  or  exer- 
cises of  any  kind,  I  do  not  perceive  how  the  propriety 
of  voluntary  payment  can  be  disputed  ;  for,  when  a 
man  who  might  otherwise  have  fitted  himself,  in  a 
counting-house  or  an  office,  for  procuring  his  after- 
support,  employs  his  time  necessarily  in  qualifying 
himself  for  a  Christian  instructor,  it  is  indispensable 
that  he  should  be  paid  for  his  instructions.  Or  if, 
after  he  has  assumed  the  ministerial  function,  it  be  his 
indispensable  business  to  devote  all  or  the  greater  por- 
tion of  his  time  to  studies  or  other  preparations  for  the 
pulpit,  the  same  necessity  remains.  He  must  be  paid 
for  his  ministry,  because,  in  order  to  be  a  minister,  he 
is  prevented  from  maintaining  himself. 

But  the  necessary  qualifications  of  a  minister  of  the 
gospel  cannot  here  be  discussed.  We  pass  on,  there- 
fore, with  the  simple  expression  of  the  sentiment,  that 
how  beneficial  soever  a  theological  education  and  theo- 
logical enquiries  may  be  in  the  exercise  of  the  office, 
yet  that  they  form  no  necessary  qualifications  ; — that 


380  REUGI0US  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY   III. 

men  may  be,  and  that  some  are,  true  and  sound  min- 
isters of  that  gospel,  without  them. 

Now,  in  enquiring  into  the  Christian  character  and  ten- 
dency of  payment  for  preaching  Christianity,  one  posi- 
tion will  perhaps  be  recognized  as  universally  true — that 
if  the  same  ability  and  zeal  in  the  exercise  of  the  ministry 
could  be  attained  without  payment  as  with  it,  the  pay- 
ment might  reasonably  and  rightly  be  forborne.  Nor  will 
it  perhaps  be  disputed,  that  if  Christian  teachers  of  the 
present  day  were  possessed  of  some  good  portion  of  the 
qualifications,  and  were  actuated  by  the  motives  of  the 
first  teachers  of  our  religion,  stated  remuneration 
would  not  be  needed.  If  love  for  mankind,  and  the 
- '  ability  which  God  giveth,"  were  strong  enough  to 
induce  and  to  enable  men  to  preach  the  gospel  without 
payment,  the  employment  of  money  as  a  motive 
would  be  without  use  or  propriety.  Remuneration  is 
a  contrivance  adapted  to  an  imperfect  state  of  the 
Christian  church  : — nothing  but  imperfection  can  make 
it  needful ;  and,  when  that  imperfection  shall  be  re- 
moved, it  will  cease  to  be  needful  again. 

These  considerations  would  lead  us  to  expect,  even 
antecedently  to  enquiry,  that  some  ill  effects  are  at- 
tendant upon  the  system  of  remuneration.  Respect- 
ing these  effects,  one  of  the  advocates  of  a  legal  pro- 
vision holds  language  which,  though  it  be  much  too 
strong,  nevertheless  contai?is  much  truth.  "  Upon  the 
voluntary  plan,"  says  Dr.  Paley,  "  preaching,  in  time, 
would  become  a  mode  of  begging.  With  what  sincer- 
ity or  with  what  dignity  can  a  preacher  dispense  the 
truths  of  Christianity,  whose  thoughts  are  perpetually 
solicited  to  the  reflection  how  he  may  increase  his  sub- 
scription? His  eloquence,  if  he  possess  any,  resembles 
rather  the  exhibition  of  a  player  who  is  computing  the 
profits  of  his  theatre,  than  the  simplicity  of  a  man  who, 
feeling  himself  the  awful  expectations  of  religion,  is 


CHAP.   VIII.]         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  381 

seeking  to  bring  others  to  such  a  sense  and  undertak- 
ing of  their  duty  as  may  save  their  souls. — He,  not 
only  whose  success  but  whose  subsistence  depends  upon 
collecting  and  pleasing  a  crowd,  must  resort  to  other 
arts  than  the  acquirement  and  communication  of  sober 
and  profitable  instruction.  For  a  preacher  to  be  thus 
at  the  mercy  of  his  audience,  to  be  obliged  to  adapt  his 
doctrines  to  the  pleasure  of  a  capricious  multitude,  to 
be  continually  affecting  a  style  and  manner  neither 
natural  to  him  nor  agreeable  to  his  judgment,  to  live 
in  constant  bondage  to  tyrannical  and  insolent  direc- 
tors, are  circumstances  so  mortifying  not  only  to  the 
pride  of  the  human  heart  but  to  the  virtuous  love  of 
independency,  that  they  are  rarely  submitted  to  with- 
out a  sacrifice  of  principle  and  a  depravation  of  char- 
acter ; — at  least  it  may  be  pronounced,  that  a  ministry 
so  degraded  would  soon  fall  into  the  lowest  hands  ;  for 
it  would  be  found  impossible  to  engage  men  of  worth 
and  ability  in  so  precarious  and  humiliating  a  pro- 
fession."* 

To  much  of  this  it  is  a  sufficient  answer,  that  the 
predictions  are  contradicted  by  the  fact.  Of  those 
teachers  who  are  supported  by  voluntary  subscriptions, 
it  is  not  true  that  their  eloquence  resembles  the  exhi- 
bition of  a  player  who  is  computing  the  profits  of  l;is 
theatre  ;  for  the  fact  is,  that  a  very  large  proportion  of 
them  assiduously  devote  themselves  from  better  mo- 
tives to  the  religious  benefit  of  their  flocks  : — it  is  not 
true  that  the  office  is  rarely  undertaken  without  what 
can  be  called  a  depravation  of  character  ;  for  the  char- 
acter, both  religious  and  moral,  of  those  teachers  who 
are  voluntarily  paid,  is  at  least  as  exemplary  as  that  of 
those  who  are  paid  by  provision  of  the  state  : — it  is  not 
true  that  the  office  falls  into  the  lowest  hands,  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  engage  men  of  worth  and  ability  in 

*  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.  b.  6,  c.  10. 


382  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  III. 

the  profession,   because  very  many  of  such  men  are 
actually  engaged  in  it. 

But  although  the  statements  of  the  Archdeacon  are 
not  wholly  true,  they  are  true  in  part.  Preaching  will 
become  a  mode  of  begging.  When  a  congregation  wants 
a  preacher,  and  we  see  a  man  get  into  the  pulpit  ex- 
pressly and  confessedly  to  show  how  he  can  preach,  in 
order  that  the  hearers  may  consider  how  they  like  him, 
and  when  one  object  of  his  thus  doing  is  confessedly  to 
obtain  an  income,  there  is  reason — not  certainly  for 
speaking  of  him  as  a  beggar — but  for  believing  that  the 
dignity  and  freedom  of  the  gospel  are  sacrificed. — 
Thoughts  perpetually  solicited  to  the  reflection  how  he 
may  increase  his  subscription.  Supposing  this  to  be 
the  language  of  exaggeration,  supposing  the  increase  of 
his  subscription  to  be  his  subordinate  concern,  yet  still 
it  is  his  concern,  and  being  his  concern,  it  is  his  temp- 
tation. It  is  to  be  feared,  that  by  the  influence  of  this 
temptation  his  sincerity  and  his  independence  may  be 
impaired,  that  the  consideration  of  what  his  hearers. 
wish  rather  than  of  what  he  thinks  they  need,  may 
prompt  him  to  sacrifice  his  conscience  to  his  profit,  and 
to  add  or  to  deduct  something  from  the  counsel  of  God. 
Such  temptation  necessarily  exists  ;  and  it  were  only  to 
exhibit  ignorance  of  the  motives  of  human  conduct  to 
deny  that  it  will  sometimes  prevail. — To  live  in  constant 
bondage  to  insolent  and  tyrannical  directors.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  directors  will  be  tyrannical 
or  insolent,  nor  by  consequence  to  suppose  that  the 
preacher  is  in  a  state  of  constant  bondage.  But  if  they 
be  not  tyrants  and  he  a  slave,  they  may  be  masters  and 
he  a  servant ;  a  servant  in  a  sense  far  different  from  that 
in  which  the  Christian  minister  is  required  to  be  a  ser- 
vant of  the  Church — in  a  sense  which  implies  an  undue 
subserviency  of  his  ministrations  to  the  will  of  men, 


CHAP.    VIII.]         REUGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  383 

and  which  is  incompatible  with  the  obligation  to  have 
no  master  but  Christ. 

Other  modes  of  voluntary  payment  may  be  and  per- 
haps they  are  adopted,  but  the  effect  will  not  be  essen- 
tially different.  Subscriptions  may  be  collected  from  a 
number  of  congregations  and  thrown  into  a  common 
fund,  which  fund  may  be  appropriated  by  a  directory 
or  conference  :  but  the  objections  still  apply  ;  for  he 
who  wishes  to  obtain  an  income  as  a  preacher,  has  then 
to  try  to  propitiate  the  directory  instead  of  a  congrega- 
tion, and  the  temptation  to  sacrifice  his  independence 
and  his  conscience  remains. 

There  is  no  way  of  obtaining  emancipation  from  this 
subjection,  no  way  of  avoiding  this  temptation,  but  by 
a  system  in  which  the  Christian  ministry  is  absolutely 
free. 

But  the  ill  effects  of  thus  paying  preachers  are  not 
confined  to  those  who  preach.  The  habitual  conscious- 
ness that  tiie  preacher  is  paid,  and  the  notion  which 
some  men  take  no  pains  to  separate  from  this  con- 
sciousness, that  he  preaches  because  he  is  paid,  have  a 
powerful  tendency  to  diminish  the  influence  of  his  ex- 
hortations, and  the  general  effect  of  his  labors.  The 
vulgarly  irreligious  think,  or  pretend  to  think,  that  it 
is  a  sufficient  excuse  for  disregarding  these  labors  to  say, 
They  are  a  matter  of  course — preachers  must  say  some- 
thing, because  it  is  their  trade.  And  it  is  more  than  to 
be  feared  that  notions,  the  same  in  kind  however  dif- 
ferent in  extent,  operate  upon  a  large  proportion  of  the 
community.  It  is  not  probable  that  it  should  be  other- 
wise ;  and  thus  it  is  that  a  continual  deduction  is  made 
by  the  hearer  from  the  preacher's  disinterestedness  or 
sincerity,  and  a  continual  deduction  therefore  from  the 
effect  of  his  labors. 

How  seldom  can  such  a  pastor  say,  with  full  demon- 
stration of   sincerity,  "I  seek  not  yours,   but  you." 


3S4  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY  lit. 

The  flock  may  indeed  be,  and  happily  it  often  is,  his 
first  and  greatest  motive  to  exertion  ;  but  the  demon- 
strative evidence  that  it  is  so,  can  only  be  afforded  by 
those  whose  ministrations  are  absolutely  free.  The 
deduction  which  is  thus  made  from  the  practical  influ- 
ence of  the  labors  of  stipended  preachers,  is  the  same 
in  kind  (though  differing  in  amount)  as  that  which  is 
made  from  a  pleader's  addresses  in  court.  He  pleads 
because  he  is  paid  for  pleading.  Who  does  not  per- 
ceive, that  if  an  able  man  came  forward  and  pleaded  in 
a  cause  without  a  retainer,  and  simply  from  the  desire 
that  justice  should  be  awarded,  he  would  be  listened 
to  with  much  more  of  confidence,  and  that  his  argu- 
ments would  have  much  more  weight,  than  if  the  same 
words  were  uttered  by  a  barrister  who  was  fee'd?  A 
similar  deduction  is  made  from  the  writings  of  paid 
ministers  especially  if  they  advocate  their  own  particu- 
lar faith.  ■ '  He  is  interested  evidence, ' '  says  the  reader 
— he  has  got  a  retainer,  and  of  course  argues  for  his 
client ;  and  thus  arguments  that  may  be  invincible, 
and  facts  that  may  be  incontrovertibly  true,  lose  some 
portion  of  their  effect,  even  upon  virtuous  men,  and  a 
large  portion  upon  the  bad,  because  the  preacher  is  paid. 
If,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  "the  amount  of  the  salary 
given  is  regulated  very  precisely  by  the  frequency  of 
the  ministry  required," — so  that  a  hearer  may  possibly 
allow  the  reflection,  The  preacher  will  get  half  a  guinea 
for  the  sermon  he  is  going  to  preach — it  is  almost  im- 
possible that  the  dignity  of  the  Christian  ministry 
should  not  be  reduced,  as  well  as  that  the  influence  of 
his  exhortations  should  not  be  diminished.  "It  is 
however  more  desirable,"  says  Milton,  "for  example 
to  be,  and  for  the  preventing  of  offence  or  suspicion,  as 
well  as  more  noble  and  honorable  in  itself,  and  condu- 
cive to  our  more  complete  glorying  in  God,  to  render 
an  unpaid  service  to  the  church,  in  this  as  well  as  in 


CHAP.   VIII.]         RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  385 

all  other   instances  ;  and,   after   the   example   of   our 
Iyord,  to  minister  and  serve  gratuitously."* 

Some  ministers  expend  all  the  income  which  they 
derive  from  their  office  in  acts  of  beneficence.  To 
these  we  may  safely  appeal  for  confirmation  of  these 
remarks.  Do  you  not  find  that  the  consciousness,  in 
the  minds  of  your  hearers,  that  you  gain  nothing  by 
your  labor,  greatly  increases  its  influence  upon  them  ? 
Do  you  not  find  that  they  listen  to  you  with  more  con- 
fidence and  regard,  and  more  willingly  admit  the  truths 
which  you  inculcate  and  conform  to  the  advices  which 
you  impart  ?  If  these  things  be  so — and  who  will  dis- 
pute it  ? — how  great  must  be  the  aggregate  obstruction 
which  pecuniary  remuneration  opposes  to  the  influence 
of  religion  in  the  world. 


But  indeed  it  is  not  practicable  to  the  writer  to  illus- 
trate the  whole  of  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  truth 
upon  this  subject,  without  a  brief  advertence  to  the 
qualifications  of  the  minister  of  the  gospel  ;  because, 
if  his  view  of  these  qualifications  be  just,  the  stipula- 
tion for  such  and  such  exercise  of  the  ministry,  and 
such  and  such  payment  is  impossible.  If  it  is  ' '  ad- 
mitted that  the  ministry  of  the  gospel  is  the  work  of 
the  Lord,  that  it  can  be  rightly  exercised  only  in 
virtue  of  his  appointment,"  and  only  when  "  a  neces- 
sity is  laid  upon  the  minister  to  preach  the  gospel, ' '  — 
it  is  manifest  that  he  cannot  engage  beforehand  to 
preach  when  others  desire  it.  It  is  manifest,  that  "  the 
compact  which  binds  the  minister  to  preach  on  the  con- 
dition that  his  hearers  shall  pay  him  for  his  preaching, 
assumes  the  character  of  absolute  inconsistency  with 
the  spirituality  of  the  Christian  religion."  f 

*  Christian  Doctrine  :  p.  484. 

t  I  would  venture  to  suggest  to  some  of  those  to  whom  these 
considerations  are  offered,  whether  the  notion  that  a  preacher  is 


3^6  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS.  [ESSAY   J II. 

"  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give."  When  we 
contemplate  a  Christian  minister  who  illustrates,  both 
in  his  commission  and  in  his  practice,  this  language  of 
his  Lord  ;  who  teaches,  advises,  reproves,  with  the 
authority  and  affection  of  a  commissioned  teacher ; 
who  fears  not  to  displease  his  hearers,  and  desires  not 
to  receive  their  reward  ;  who  is  under  no  temptation  to 
withhold,  and  does  not  withhold,  any  portion  of  that 
counsel  which  he  thinks  God  designs  for  his  church  ; — 
when  we  contemplate  such  a  man,  we  may  feel  some- 
what of  thankfulness  and  of  joy  ; — of  thankfulness  and 
joy  that  the  Universal  Parent  thus  enables  his  creatures 
to  labor  for  the  good  of  one  another,  in  that  same 
spirit  in  which  He  cares  for  them  and  blesses  them  him- 
self. 

I  censure  not,  either  in  word  or  in  thought,  him  who, 
in  sincerity  of  mind,  accepts  remuneration  for  his  labors 
in  the  church.  It  may  not  be  inconsistent  with  the 
dispensations  of  Providence,  that  in  the  present  imper- 
fect condition  of  the  Christian  family,  imperfect  prin- 
ciples respecting  the  ministry  should  be  permitted  to 
prevail  :  nor  is  it  to  be  questioned  that  some  of  those 
who  do  receive  remuneration,  are  fulfilling  their  proper 

a  sine  qua  non  of  the  exercise  of  public  worship,  is  not  taken 
up  without  sufficient  consideration  of  the  principles  which  it 
involves.  If,  ' '  where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  the 
name  "  of  Christ,  there  He,  the  minister  of  the  sanctuary,  is 
"  in  the  midst  of  them,"  it  surely  cannot  be  necessary  to  the  ex- 
ercises of  such  worship,  that  another  preacher  should  be  there. 
Surely,  too,  it  derogates  something  from  the  excellence,  some- 
thing from  the  glory  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  to  assume 
that,  if  a  number  of  Christians  should  be  so  situated  as  to  be 
without  a  preacher,  there  the  public  worship  of  God  cannot  be 
performed.  This  may  often  happen  in  remote  places,  in  voyages 
or  the  like  :  and  I  have  sometimes  been  impressed  with  the  im- 
portance of  these  considerations  when  I  have  heard  a  person 

say,    " is  absent,  and  therefore  there  will  be  no  Divine 

service  this  morning." 


CHAP.    IX.]  PATRIOTISM.  387 

allotments  in  the  universal  church.  But  this  does  not 
evince  that  we  should  not  anticipate  the  arrival,  and 
promote  the  extension,  of  a  more  perfect  state.  It  does 
not  evince  that  a  higher  allotment  may  not  await  their 
successors — that  days  of  greater  purity  and  brightness 
may  not  arrive  ; — of  purity,  when  every  motive  of  the 
Christian  minister  shall  be  simply  Christian  ;  and  of 
brightness,  when  the  light  of  truth  shall  be  displayed 
with  greater  effulgence.  When  the  Great  Parent  of  all 
shall  thus  turn  his  favor  towards  his  people  :  when  He 
shall  supply  them  with  teachers  exclusively  of  his  own 
appointment,  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  ordinary 
present  state  of  the  Christian  ministry  is  adapted  only 
to  the  twilight  of  the  Christian  day  ;  and  some  of  those 
who  now  faithfully  labor  in  this  hour  of  twilight  will 
be  amongst  the  first  to  rejoice  in  the  greater  glory  of 
the  noon. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
PATRIOTISM. 


Patriotism  as  it  is  viewed  by  Christianity — A  Patriotism  which 
is  opposed  to  general  benignity — Patriotism  not  the  soldier's 
motive. 

We  are  presented  with  a  beautiful  subject  of  con- 
templation, when  we  discover  that  the  principles  which 
Christianity  advances  upon  its  own  authority,  are  rec- 
ommended and  enforced  by  their  practical  adaptation 
to  the  condition  and  the  wants  of  man.  With  such  a 
subject  I  think  we  are  presented  in  the  case  of  patriot- 
ism. 

' '  Christianity  does  not  encourage  particular  patriot- 
ism in  opposition  to  general  benignity."*     If  it  did,  it 

*  Bishop  Watson. 


388  PATRIOTISM.  [ESSAY  III. 

would  not  be  adapted  for  the  world.  The  duties  of  the 
subject  of  one  state  would  often  be  in  opposition  to 
those  of  the  subject  of  another,  and  men  might  inflict 
evil  or  misery  upon  neighbor  nations  in  conforming  to 
the  Christian  law.  Christianity  is  designed  to  benefit, 
not  a  community,  but  the  world.  The  promotion  of 
the  interests  of  one  community  by  injuring  another — 
that  is,  ' '  patriotism  in  opposition  to  general  benign- 
ity,"— it  utterly  rejects  as  wrong  ;  and  in  doing  this, 
it  does  that  which  in  a  system  of  such  wisdom  and  be- 
nevolence we  should  expect.— "  The  love  of  our 
country,"  says  Adam  Smith,  "  seems  not  to  be  derived 
from  the  love  of  mankind."* 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  word  patriotism  is  to 
be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  or  that  it  contains 
any  disquisitions  respecting  the  proper  extent  of  the 
love  of  our  country — but  I  say  that  the  universality  of 
benevolence  which  Christianity  inculcates,  both  in  its 
essential  character  and  in  its  precepts,  is  incompatible 
with  that  patriotism  which  would  benefit  our  own  com- 
munity at  the  expense  of  general  benevolence.  Pa- 
triotism, as  it  is  often  advocated,  is  a  low  and  selfish 
principle,  a  principle  wholly  unworthy  of  that  enlight- 
ened and  expanded  philanthropy  which  religion  pro- 
poses. 

Nevertheless  Christianity  appears  not  to  encourage 
the  doctrine  of  being  a  M  citizen  of  the  world,"  and  of 
paying  no  more  regard  to  our  own  community  than  to 
every  other.  And  why  ?  Because  such  a  doctrine  is 
not  rational ;  because  it  opposes  the  exercise  of  natural 
and  virtuous  feelings  ;  and  because,  if  it  were  attempted 
to  be  reduced  to  practice,  it  may  be  feared  that  it 
would  destroy  confined  benignity  without  effecting  a 
counterbalancing  amount  of    universal    philanthropy. 

*  Theo.  Mor.  Sent.  The  limitation  with  which  this  opinion 
should  be  regarded,  we  shall  presently  propose. 


CHAP.    IX.]  PATRIOTISM.  389 

This  preference  of  our  own  nation  is  indicated  in.  that 
strong  language  of  Paul,  "I  could  wish  that  myself 
were  accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kins- 
men according  to  the  flesh,  who  are  Israelites."*  And 
a  similar  sentiment  is  inculcated  by  the  admonition — 
"  As  we  have  therefore,  opportunity,  let  us  do  good 
unto  all  men,  especially  unto  them  who  are  of  the 
household  of  faith . "  f  I*1  another  place  the  same  senti- 
ment is  applied  to  more  private  life  ; — "If  any  provide 
not  for  his  own,  and  specially  for  those  of  his  own  house,  he 
hath  denied  the  faith."  \ 

All  this  is  perfectly  consonant  with  reason  and  with 
nature  Since  the  helpless  and  those  who  need  assis- 
tance must  obtain  it  somewhere,  where  can  they  so 
rationally  look  for  it,  where  shall  they  look  for  it  at 
all,  except  from  those  with  whom  they  are  connected 
in  society  ?  If  these  do  not  exercise  benignity  to- 
wards them,  who  will?  And  as  to  the  dictate  of 
nature,  it  is  a  law  of  nature  that  a  man  shall  provide 
for  his  own.  He  is  prompted  to  do  this  by  the  im- 
pulse of  nature.  Who,  indeed,  shall  support,  and 
cherish,  and  protect  a  child  if  his  parents  do  not  ? 
That  speculative  philosophy  is  vain  which  would  sup- 
plant these  dictates  by  doctrines  of  general  philan- 
thropy. It  cannot  be  applicable  to  human  affairs  until 
there  is  an  alteration  in  the  human  constitution.  Not 
only  religion  therefore,  but  reason  and  nature,  reject 
that  philosophy  which  teaches  that  no  man  should  pre- 
fer or  aid  another  because  he  is  his  countryman,  his 
neighbor,  or  his  child  : — for  even  this,  the  philosophy 
has  taught  us ;  and  we  have  been  seriously  told  that, 
in  pursuance  of  general  philanthropy,  we  ought  not  to 
cherish  or  support  our  own  offspring  in  preference  to 
other  children.     The  effect  of  these  doctrines,  if  they 

*  Rom.  ix.  3.  f  Gal.  vi.  10.  %  1  Tim.  v.  8. 


39°  PATRIOTISM.  [KSSAY  III, 

were  reduced  to  practice,  would  be,  not  to  diffuse  uni- 
versal benevolence,  but  to  contract  or  destroy  the 
charities  of  men  for  their  families,  their  neighbors,  and 
their  country.  It  is  an  idle  system  of  philosophy 
which  sets  out  with  extinguishing  those  principles  of 
human  nature  which  the  Creator  has  implanted  for 
wise  and  good  ends.  He  that  shall  so  far  succeed  in 
practising  this  philosophy  as  to  look  with  indifference 
upon  his  parent,  his  wife,  and  his  son,  will  not  often 
be  found  with  much  zeal  to  exercise  kindness  and 
benevolence  to  the  world  at  large. 

Christianity  rejects  alike  the  extravagance  of  patriot- 
ism and  the  extravagance  of  seeming  philanthropy. 
Its  precepts  are  addressed  to  us  as  men  with  human 
constitutions,  and  as  men  in  society.  But  to  cherish 
and  support  my  own  child  rather  than  others  ;  to  do 
good  to  my  neighbors  rather  than  to  strangers  ;  to 
benefit  my  own  country  rather  than  another  nation, 
does  not  imply  that  we  may  injure  other  nations, 
or  strangers,  of  their  children,  in  order  to  do  good  to 
our  own.  Here  is  the  point  for  discrimination — a  point 
which  vulgar  patriotism  and  vulgar  philosophy  have 
alike  overlooked. 

The  proper  mode  in  which  patriotism  should  be  exer- 
cised is  that  which  does  not  necessarily  respect  other  na- 
tions. 'He  is  the  truest  patriot  who  benefits  his  own  coun- 
try without  diminishing  the  welfare  of  another.  For 
which  reason,  those  who  induce  improvements  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice,  in  the  maxims  of  governing,  in 
the  political  constitution  of  the  state — or  those  who  ex- 
tend and  rectify  the  education,  or  in  any  other  manner 
amend  the  moral  or  social  condition  of  a  people,  possess 
incomparably  higher  claims  to  the  praise  of  patriotism 
than  multitudes  of  those  who  receive  it  from  the  popu- 
lar voice. 

That   patriotism  which   is   manifested    in    political 


CHAP.    IX.]  PATRIOTISM.  39I 

partizanship,  is  frequently  of  a  very  questionable  kind. 
The  motives  to  this  partizanship  are  often  far  other 
than  the  love  of  our  country,  even  when  the  measure 
which  a  party  pursues  tends  to  the  country's  good  ; 
and  many  are  called  patriots,  of  whom  both  the 
motives  and  the  actions  are  pernicious  or  impure.  The 
most  vulgar  and  unfounded  talk  of  patriotism  is  that 
which  relates  to  the  agents  of  military  operations.  In 
general,  the  patriotism  is  of  a  kind  which  Christianity 
condemns ;  because  it  is  ft  in  opposition  to  general 
benignity."  It  does  more  harm  to  another  country 
than  good  to  our  own.  In  truth,  the  merit  often  con- 
sists in  the  harm  that  is  done  to  another  country, 
with  but  little  pretensions  to  benefiting  our  own. 
These  agents  therefore,  if  they  were  patriotic  at  all, 
would  commonly  be  so  in  an  unchristian  sense. 

Upon  the  whole,  we  shall  act  both  safely  and  wisely 
in  lowering  the  relative  situation  of  patriotism  in  the 
scale  of  Christian  virtues.  It  is  a  virtue  ;  but  it  is  far 
from  the  greatest  or  the  highest.  The  world  has  given 
to  it  an  unwarranted  elevation — an  elevation  to  which 
it  has  no  pretensions  in  the  view  of  truth  ;  and  if  the 
friends  of  truth  consign  it  to  its  proper  station,  it  is 
probable  that  there  will  be  fewer  spurious  pretensions 
to  its  praise. 


392  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

CHAPTER  X. 

WAR. 

Causes  of  War. — Want  of  enquiry  :  Indifference  to  human 
misery  :  National  irritability  :  Interest :  Secret  motives  of 
Cabinets  :  Ideas  of  glory — Foundation  of  military  glory. 

Consequences  oe  War. — Destruction  of  human  life  :  Taxa- 
tion :  Moral  depravity  :  Familiarity  with  plunder  :  Implicit 
submission  to  superiors  :  Resignation  of  moral  agency  :  Bond- 
age and  degradation — Loan  of  armies — Effects  on  the  com- 
munity. 

Lawfulness  of  War. — Influence  of  habit — Of  appealing  to 
antiquity — The  Christian  Scriptures — Subjects  of  Christ's 
benediction — Matt.  xxvi.  52. — The  Apostles  and  Evangelists 
— The  Centurion — Cornelius — Silence  not  a  proof  of  approba- 
tion— Luke  xxii.  36. — John  the  Baptist — Negative  evidence — 
Prophecies  of  the  old  Testament — The  requisitions  of  Chris- 
tianity of  present  obligation — Primitive  Christians — Example 
and  testimony  of  early  Christians — Christian  soldiers — Wars 
of  the  Jews — Duties  of  individuals  and  nations— Offensive  and 
defensive  war — Wars  always  aggressive — Paley — War  wholly 
forbidden. 

Of  the  probable  practical  Effects  of  adhering  to  the 
Moral  Law  in  respect  to  War. — Quakers  in  America  and 
Ireland — Colonization  of  Pennsylvania — Unconditional  reli- 
ance on  Providence — Recapitulation — General  Observations. 

It  is  one  amongst  the  numerous  moral  phenomena 
of  the  present  times,  that  the  enquiry  is  silently  yet 
not  slowly  spreading  in  the  world — Is  war  compatible 
with  the  Christian  religion  f  There  was  a  period  when 
the  question  was  seldom  asked,  and  when  war  was  re- 
garded almost  by  every  man  both  as  inevitable  and 
right.  That  period  has  certainly  passed  away  ;  and 
not  only  individuals  but  public  societies,  and  societies 
in  distant  nations,  are  urging  the  question  upon  the 
attention  of  mankind.  The  simple  circumstance  that 
it  is  thus  urged  contains  no  irrational  motive  to  inves- 
tigation :  for  why  should  men  ask  the  question  if  they 


CHAP.   X.]  WAR.  393 

did  not  doubt  ;  and  how,  after  these  long  ages  of  pre- 
scription, could  they  begin  to  doubt,  without  a  reason? 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark,  that  whilst  disquisi- 
tions are  frequently  issuing  from  the  press,  of  which 
the  tendency  is  to  show  that  war  is  not  compatible  with 
Christianity,  few  serious  attempts  are  made  to  show 
that  it  is.  Whether  this  results  from  the  circumstance 
that  no  individual  peculiarly  is  interested  in  the  proof 
— or  that  there  is  a  secret  consciousness  that  proof  can- 
not be  brought — or  that  those  who  may  be  desirous  of 
defending  the  custom,  rest  in  security  that  the  impo- 
tence of  its  assailants  will  be  of  no  avail  against  a  cus- 
tom so  established  and  so  supported — I  do  not  know  ; 
yet  the  fact  is  remarkable,  that  scarcely  a  defender  is 
to  be  found.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  question 
is  one  of  the  utmost  interest  and  importance  to  man. 
Whether  the  custom  be  defensible  or  not,  every  man 
should  enquire  into  its  consistency  with  the  moral  law. 
If  it  is  defensible  he  may,  by  enquiry,  dismiss  the 
scruples  which  it  is  certain  subsist  in  the  minds  of  mul- 
titudes, and  thus  exempt  himself  from  the  offence  of 
participating  in  that  which,  though  pure,  he  "  esteem- 
eth  to  be  unclean. "  If  it  is  not  defensible,  the  pro- 
priety of  investigation  is  increased  in  a  tenfold  degree. 

It  may  be  a  subject  therefore  of  reasonable  regret  to 
the  friends  and  the  lovers  of  truth,  that  the  question  of 
the  moral  lawfulness  of  war  is  not  brought  fairly  before 
the  public.  I  say  fairly  :  because  though  many  of  the 
publications  which  impugn  its  lawfulness  advert  to  the 
ordinary  arguments  in  its  favor,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  as- 
sumed that  they  give  to  those  arguments  all  that  vigor 
and  force  which  would  be  imparted  by  a  stated  and  an 
able  advocate.  Few  books,  it  is  probable,  would  tend 
more  powerfully  to  promote  the  discovery  and  dissemi- 
nation of  truth,  than  one  which  should  frankly  and 
fully  and  ably  advocate,  upon  sound  moral  principles, 


394  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

the  practice  of  war.  The  public  would  then  see  the 
whole  of  what  can  be  urged  in  its  favor  without  being 
obliged  to  seek  for  arguments,  as  they  now  must,  in 
incidental  or  imperfect  or  scattered  disquisitions  :  and 
possessing  in  a  distinct  form  the  evidence  of  both  parties, 
they  would  be  enabled  to  judge  justly  between  them. 
Perhaps  if,  invited  as  the  public  are  to  the  discussion, 
no  man  is  hereafter  willing  to  adventure  in  the  cause, 
the  conclusion  will  not  be  unreasonable,  that  no  man  is 
destitute  of  a  consciousness  that  the  cause  is  not  a  good 
one. 

Meantime  it  is  the  business  of  him  whose  enquiries 
have  conducted  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cause  is 
not  good,  to  exhibit  the  evidence  upon  which  the  con- 
clusion is  founded.  It  happens  upon  the  subject  of 
war,  more  than  upon  almost  any  other  subject  of 
human  enquiry,  that  the  individual  finds  it  difficult  to 
contemplate  its  merits  with  an  uninfluenced  mind.  He 
finds  it  difficult  to  examine  it  as  it  would  be  examined 
by  a  philosopher  to  whom  the  subject  was  new.  He 
is  familiar  with  its  details  ;  he  is  habituated  to  the  idea 
of  its  miseries  ;  he  has  perhaps  never  doubted,  because 
he  has  never  questioned,  its  rectitude  ;  nay,  he  has 
associated  with  it  ideas  not  of  splendor  only  but  of 
honor  and  of  merit.  That  such  an  enquirer  will  not, 
without  some  effort  of  abstraction,  examine  the  ques- 
tion with  impartiality  and  justice,  is  plain  ;  and  there- 
fore the  first  business  of  him  who  would  satisfy  his 
mind  respecting  the  lawfulness  of  war,  is  to  divest  him- 
self of  all  those  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
have  been  the  result  not  of  reflection  and  judgment, 
but  of  the  ordinary  associations  of  life.  And  perhaps 
he  may  derive  some  assistance  in  this  necessary  but  not 
easy  dismissal  of  previous  opinions,  by  referring  first  to 
some  of  the  ordinary  causes  and  consequences  of  war. 
The  reference  will  enable  us  also  more  satisfactorily  to 


CHAP.   X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  395 

estimate  the  moral  character  of  the  practice  itself  :  for 
is  no  unimportant  auxiliary  in  forming  such  an  esti- 
mate of  human  actions  or  opinions,  to  know  how  they 
have  been  produced  and  what  are  their  effects. 

CAUSES  OF  WAR. 

Of  these  causes  one  undoubtedly  consists  in  the 
want  of  enquiry.  We  have  been  accustomed  from 
earliest  life  to  a  familiarity  with  its  ' '  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance ;  "  soldiers  have  passed  us  at  every  step, 
and  battles  and  victories  have  been  the  topic  of  every 
one  around  us.  It  therefore  becomes  familiarized  to 
all  our  thoughts  and  interwoven  with  all  our  associa- 
tions. We  have  never  enquired  whether  these  things 
should  be  :  the  question  does  not  even  suggest  itself. 
We  acquiesce  in  it,  as  we  acquiesce  in  the  rising  of  the 
sun  without  any  other  idea  than  that  it  is  a  part  of  the 
ordinary  processess  of  the  world.  And  how  are  we  to 
feel  disapprobation  of  a  system  that  we  do  not  ex- 
amine, and  of  the  nature  of  which  we  do  not  think  ? 
Want  of  enquiry  has  been  the  means  by  which  long- 
continued  practices,  whatever  has  been  their  enormity, 
have  obtained  the  general  concurrence  of  the  world, 
and  by  which  they  have  continued  to  pollute  or  de- 
grade it,  long  after  the  few  who  enquire  into  their 
nature  have  discovered  them  to  be  bad.  It  was  by 
these  means  that  the  slave  trade  was  so  long  tolerated 
by  this  land  of  humanity.  Men  did  not  think  of  its 
iniquity.  We  were  induced  to  think,  and  we  soon  ab- 
horred, and  then  abolished  it.  Of  the  effects  of  this 
want  of  enquiry  we  have  indeed  frequent  examples 
upon  the  subject  before  us.  Many  who  have  all  their 
lives  concluded  that  war  is  lawful  and  right,  have  found, 
when  they  began  to  examine  the  question,  that  their 
conclusions  were  founded  upon  no  evidence  ; — that  they 


39^  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

had  believed  in  its  rectitude  not  because  they  had  pos- 
sessed themselves  of  proof,  but  because  they  had  never 
enquired  whether  it  was  capable  of  proof  or  not.  In 
the  present  moral  state  of  the  world,  one  of  the  first 
concerns  of  him  who  would  discover  pure  morality 
should  be,  to  question  the  purity  of  that  which  now 
obtains. 

Another  cause  of  our  complacency  with  war,  and 
therefore  another  cause  of  war  itself,  consists  in  that 
callousness  to  human  misery  which  the  custom  in- 
duces. They  who  are  shocked  at  a  single  murder  on 
the  highway,  hear  with  indifference  of  the  slaughter 
of  a  thousand  on  the  field.  They  whom  the  idea  of  a 
single  corpse  would  thrill  with  terror,  contemplate  that 
of  heaps  of  human  carcasses  mangled  by  human  hands, 
with  frigid  indifference.  If  a  murder  is  committed,  the 
narrative  is  given  in  the  public  newspaper,  with  many 
adjectives  of  horror — with  many  expressions  of  com- 
miseration, and  many  hopes  that  the  perpetrator  will 
be  detected.  In  the  next  paragraph,  the  editor,  per- 
haps, tells  us  that  he  has  hurried  a  second  'edition  to 
the  press,  in  order  that  he  may  be  the  first  to  glad  the 
public  with  the  intelligence,  that  in  an  engagement 
which  has  just  taken  place,  eight  hundred  and  fifty  of 
the  enemy  were  killed.  Now,  is  not  this  latter  intelli- 
gence eight  hundred  and  fifty  times  as  deplorable  as 
the  first?  Yet  the  first  is  the  subject  of  our  sorrow, 
and  this — of  our  joy  !  The  inconsistency  and  dispro- 
portionateness  which  has  been  occasioned  in  our  senti- 
ments of  benevolence,  offers  a  curious  moral  phe- 
nomenon. * 

*  Part  of  the  Declaration  and  Oath  prescribed  to  be  taken  by 
Catholics  is  this:  "I  do  solemnly  declare  before  God,  that  I 
believe  that  no  act  in  itself  unjust,  immoral,  or  wicked,  can 
ever  be  justified  or  excused  by  or  under  pretence  or  color  that 
it  was  done  either  for  the  good  of  the  church  or  in  obedience  to 


CHAP.   X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  397 

The  immolations  of  the  Hindoos  fill  us  with  compas- 
sion or  horror,  and  we  are  zealously  laboring  to  pre- 
vent them.  The  sacrifices  of  life  by  our  own  criminal 
executions,  are  the  subject  of  our  anxious  commisera- 
tion, and  we  are  strenuously  endeavoring  to  diminish 
their  number.  We  feel  that  the  life  of  a  Hindoo  or  a 
malefactor  is  a  serious  thing,  and  that  nothing  but 
imperious  necessity  should  induce  us  to  destroy  the 
one,  or  to  permit  the  destruction  of  the  other.  Yet 
what  are  these  sacrifices  of  life  in  comparison  with  the 
sacrifices  of  war?  In  the  late  campaign  in  Russia, 
there  fell,  during  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  days 
in  succession,  an  average  of  two  thousand  nine  hun- 
dred men  per  day  :  more  than  five  hundred  thousand 
human  beings  in  less  than  six  months  !     And  most  of 


any  ecclesiastical  power  whatsoever. ' '  This  declaration  is  re- 
quired as  a  solemn  act,  and  is  supposed,  of  course,  to  involve  a 
great  and  sacred  principle  of  rectitude.  We  propose  the  same 
declaration  to  be  taken  by  military  men,  with  the  alteration  of 
two  words.  "  I  do  solemnly  declare  before  God,  that  I  believe 
that  no  act  in  itself  unjust,  immoral,  or  wicked,  can  ever  be 
justified  or  excused  by  or  under  pretence  or  color  that  it  was 
done  either  for  the  good  of  the  state  or  in  obedience  to  any 
military  power  whatsoever. ' '  How  would  this  declaration  assort 
with  the  customary  practice  of  the  soldier?  Put  state  for 
church,  and  military  for  ecclesiastical,  and  then  the  world  thinks 
that  acts  in  themselves  most  unjust,  immoral,  and  wicked,  are 
not  only  justified  and  excused,  but  very  meritorious  :  for  in  the 
whole  system  of  warfare,  justice  and  morality  are  utterly  disre- 
garded. Are  those  who  approve  of  this  Catholic  declaration 
conscious  of  the  grossness  of  their  own  inconsistency  ?  Or  will 
they  tell  us  that  the  interests  of  the  state  are  so  paramount  to 
those  of  the  church,  that  what  would  be  wickedness  in  the  ser- 
vice of  one,  is  virtue  in  the  service  of  the  other  ?  The  truth  we 
suppose  to  be,  that  so  intense  is  the  power  of  public  opinion, 
that  of  the  thousands  who  approve  the  Catholic  declarations  and 
the  practices  of  war,  there  are  scarcely  tens  who  even  perceive 
their  own  inconsistency. — Mem.  in  the  MS. 

OF  THB 

■UNIVERSITY 


39$  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  [  ESSAY  III. 

these  victims  expired  with  peculiar  intensity  of  suffer- 
ing. We  are  carrying  our  benevolence  to  the  Indies, 
but  what  becomes  of  it  in  Russia,  or  at  Leipsic  ?  We 
are  laboring  to  save  a  few  lives  from  the  gallows,  but 
where  is  our  solicitude  to  save  them  on  the  field  ?  I^ife 
is  life  wheresoever  it  be  sacrificed,  and  has  every 
where  equal  claims  to  our  regard.  I  am  not  now  say- 
ing that  war  is  wrong,  but  that  we  regard  its  miseries 
with  an  indifference  with  which  we  regard  no  others  : 
that  if  our  sympathy  were  reasonably  excited  respect- 
ing them,  we  should  be  powerfully  prompted  to  avoid 
war  ;  and  that  the  want  of  this  reasonable  and  virtuous 
sympathy,  is  one  cause  of  its  prevalence  in  the  world. 
And  a?iother  consists  in  national  irritability.  It  is 
assumed  (not  indeed  upon  the  most  rational  grounds) 
•that  the  best  way  of  supporting  the  dignity,  and  main- 
taining the  security  of  a  nation  is,  when  occasions  of 
disagreement  arise,  to  assume  a  high  attitude  and  a 
fearless  tone.  We  keep  ourselves  in  a  state  of  irrita- 
bility which  is  continually  alive  to  occasions  of  offence  ; 
and  he  that  is  prepared  to  be  offended  readily 
finds  offences.  A  jealous  sensibility  sees  insults  and 
injuries  where  sober  eyes  see  nothing,  and  nations 
thus  surround  themselves  with  a  sort  of  artificial  ten- 
tacula,  which  they  throw  wide  in  quest  of  irritation, 
and  by  which  they  are  stimulated  to  revenge  by  every 
touch  of  accident  or  inadvertency.  They  who  are 
easily  offended  will  also  easily  offend.  What  is  the 
experience  of  private  life  ?  The  man  who  is  always  on 
the  alert  to  discover  trespasses  on  his  honor  or  his 
rights,  never  fails  to  quarrel  with  his  neighbors.  Such 
a  person  may  be  dreaded  as  a  torpedo.  We  may  fear, 
but  we  vShall  not  love  him  ;  and  fear,  without  love, 
easily  lapses  into  enmity.  There  are,  therefore,  many 
feuds  and  litigations  in  the  life  of  such  a  man,  that 
would  never  have  disturbed    its   quiet    if  he  had    not 


CHAP.   X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  399 

captiously  snarled  at  the  trespasses  of  accident,  and  sav- 
agely retaliated  insignificant  injuries.  The  viper  that 
we  chance  to  molest,  we  suffer  to  live  if  he  continue  to 
be  quiet ;  but  if  he  raise  himself  in  menaces  of  de- 
struction we  knock  him  on  the  head. 

It  is  with  nations  as  with  men.  If  on  every  offence 
we  fly  to  arms,  we  shall  of  necessity  provoke  exasper- 
ation ;  and  if  we  exasperate  a  people  as  petulant  as 
ourselves  we  may  probably  continue  to  butcher  one 
another,  until  we  cease  only  from  emptiness  of  ex- 
chequers or  weariness  of  slaughter.  To  threaten  war, 
is  therefore  often  equivalent  to  beginning  it.  In  the 
present  state  of  men's  principles,  it  is  not  probable  that 
one  nation  will  observe  another  levying  men,  and 
building  ships,  and  founding  cannon,  without  provid- 
ing men,  and  ships,  and  cannon  themselves  ;  and  when 
both  are  thus  threatening  and  defying,  what  is  the 
hope  that  there  will  not  be  a  war  ? 

If  nations  fought  only  when  they  could  not  be  at 
peace,  there  would  be  very  little  fighting  in  the  world. 
The  wars  that  are  waged  for  ' '  insults  to  flags, ' '  and  an 
endless  train  of  similar  motives,  are  perhaps  generally 
attributable  to  the  irritability  of  our  pride.  We  are  at 
no  pains  to  appear  pacific  towards  the  offender  :  our 
remonstrance  is  a  threat  ;  and  the  nation  which  would 
give  satisfaction  to  an  enquiry,  will  give  no  other 
answer  to  a  menace  than  a  menace  in  return.  At 
length  we  begin  to  fight,  not  because  wTe  are  aggrieved, 
but  because  we  are  angry.  One  example  may  be 
offered  :  "  In  1789,  a  small  Spanish  vessel  committed 
some  violence  in  Nootka  Sound,  under  the  pretence 
that  the  country  belonged  to  Spain.  This  appears  to 
have  been  the  principal  ground  of  offence  ;  and  with 
this  both  the  government  and  the  people  of  England 
were  very  angry.  The  irritability  and  haughtiness 
which    they    manifested    were   unaccountable    to   the 


400  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III 

Spaniards,  and  the  peremptory  tone  was  imputed  by 
Spain,  not  to  the  feelings  of  offended  dignity  and 
violated  justice,  but  to  some  lurking  enmity,  and  some 
secret  designs  which  we  did  not  choose  to  avow.1'*  If 
the  tone  had  been  less  peremptory  and  more  rational, 
no  such  suspicion  would  have  been  excited,  and  the 
hostility  which  was  consequent  upon  the  suspicion 
would,  of  course,  have  been  avoided.  Happily  the 
English  were  not  so  passionate,  but  that  before  they 
proceeded  to  fight  they  negotiated,  and  settled  the 
affair  amicably.  The  preparations  for  this  foolish  war 
cost,  however,  three  millions  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  thousand  pounds  ! 

So  well  indeed  is  national  irritability  known  to  be  an 
efficient  cause  of  war,  that  they  who  from  any  motive 
wish  to  promote  it,  endeavor  to  rouse  the  temper  of  a 
people  by  stimulating  their  passions — just  as  the  boys 
in  our  streets  stimulate  two  dogs  to  fight.  These  persons 
talk  of  the  insults,  or  the  encroachments,  or  the  con- 
tempts of  the  destined  enemy,  with  every  artifice  of 
aggravation ;  they  tell  us  of  foreigners  who  want  to 
trample  upon  our  rights,  of  rivals  who  ridicule  our 
power,  of  foes  who  will  crush,  and  of  tyrants  who  will 
enslave  us.  They  pursue  their  object,  certainly,  by 
efficacious  means  :  they  desire  a  war,  and  therefore  irri- 
tate our  passions  ;  and  when  men  are  angry  they  are 
easily  persuaded  to  fight. 

That  this  cause  of  war  is  morally  bad — that  petu- 
lance and  irritability  are  wholly  incompatible  with 
Christianity,  these  pages  have  repeatedly  shown. 

Wars  are  often  promoted  from  considerations  of  in- 
terest, as  well  as  from  passion.  The  love  of  gain  adds 
its  influence  to  our  other  motives  to  support  them  ; 
and  without  other  motives,  we  know  that  this  love  is 
sufficient  to  give  great  obliquity  to  the  moral  judgment, 
*  Smollett's  England. 


CHAP.    X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  401 

and  tempt  us  to  many  crimes.  During  a  war  of  ten 
years  there  will  always  be  many  whose  income  depends 
on  its  continuance  ;  and  a  countless  host  of  commissar- 
ies, and  purveyors,  and  agents,  and  mechanics,  com- 
mend a  war  because  it  fills  their  pockets.  And 
unhappily,  if  money  is  in  prospect,  the  desolation  of  a 
kingdom  is  often  of  little  concern  :  destruction  and 
slaughter  are  not  to  be  put  in  competition  with  a  hun- 
dred a-year.  In  truth,  it  seems  sometimes  to  be  the 
system  of  the  conductors  of  a  war,  to  give  to  the  sources 
of  gain  endless  ramifications.  The  more  there  are  who 
profit  by  it  the  more  numerous  are  its  supporters  ;  and 
thus  the  projects  of  a  cabinet  become  identified  with 
the  wishes  of  a  people,  and  both  are  gratified  in  the 
prosecution  of  war. 

A  support  more  systematic  and  powerful  is  however 
given  to  war,  because  it  offers  to  the  higher  ranks  of 
society  a  profession  which  unites  gentility  with  profit, 
and  which,  without  the  vulgarity  of  trade  maintains  or 
enriches  them.  It  is  of  little  consequence  to  enquire 
whether  the  distinction  of  vulgarity  between  the  toils 
of  war  and  the  toils  of  commerce  be  fictitious.  In  the 
abstract,  it  is  fictitious  ;  but  of  this  species  of  reputation 
public  opinion  holds  the  arbitrium  etjus  et  norma  ;  and 
public  opinion  is  in  favor  of  war. 

The  army  and  the  navy,  therefore,  afford  to  the 
middle  and  higher  classes  a  most  acceptable  profession. 
The  profession  of  arms  is  like  the  profession  of  law  or 
physic — a  regular  source  of  employment  and  profit. 
Boys  are  educated  for  the  army  as  they  are  educated 
for  the  bar  ;  and  parents  appear  to  have  no  other  idea 
than  that  war  is  part  of  the  business  of  the  world.  Of 
younger  sons,  whose  fathers  in  pursuance  of  the  un- 
happy system  of  primogeniture,  do  not  choose  to  sup- 
port them  at  the  expense  of  the  heir,  the  army  and  the 
navy  are  the  common  resource.     They  would  not  know 


402  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

what  to  do  without  them.  To  many  of  these  the  news 
of  a  peace  is  a  calamity  ;  and  though  they  may  not  lift 
their  voices  in  favor  of  new  hostilities  for  the  sake  of 
gain,  it  is  unhappily  certain  that  they  often  secretly 
desire  it. 

It  is  in  this  manner  that  much  of  the  rank,  the  influ- 
ence, and  the  wealth  of  a  country  become  interested  in 
the  promotion  of  wars  ;  and  when  a  custom  is  promoted 
by  wealth,  and  influence,  and  rank,  what  is  the  wonder 
that  it  should  be  continued  ?  It  is  said,  (if  my  memory 
serves  me,  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,)  "  he  thattakethup 
his  rest  to  live  by  this  profession  shall  hardly  be  an 
honest  man." 

By  depending  upon  war  for  a  subsistence,  a  powerful 
inducement  is  given  to  desire  it  ;  and  when  the  question 
of  war  is  to  be  decided,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the 
whispers  of  interest  will  prevail,  and  that  humanity, 
and  religion,  and  conscience  will  be  sacrificed  to  pro- 
mote it. 

Of  those  causes  of  war  which  consist  in  the  ambition 
of  princes  or  statesmen  or  commanders,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  speak,  because  no  one  to  whom  the  world  will 
listen  is  willing  to  defend  them. 

Statesmen  however  have,  besides  ambition,  many 
purposes  of  nice  policy  which  make  wars  convenient  : 
and  when  they  have  such  purposes,  they  are  sometimes 
cool  speculators  in  the  lives  of  men.  They  who  have 
much  patronage  have  many  dependents,  and  they  who 
have  many  dependents  have  much  power.  By  a  war, 
thousands  become  dependent  on  a  minister ;  and  if  he 
be  disposed,  he  can  often  pursue  schemes  of  guilt,  and 
intrench  himself  in  unpunished  wickedness,  because  the 
war  enables  him  to  silence  the  clamor  of  opposition  by 
an  office,  and  to  secure  the  suffrages  of  venality  by  a 
bribe.  He  has  therefore  many  motives  to  war — in 
ambition,  that  does  not  refer  to  conquest  ;  or  in  fear, 


CHAP.    X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  403 

that  extends  only  to  his  office  or  his  pocket  :  and  fear 
or  ambition,  are  sometimes  more  interesting  considera- 
tions than  the  happiness  and  the  lives  of  men.  Cab- 
inets have  in  truth,  many  secret  motives  to  wars  of 
which  the  people  know  little.  They  talk  in  public  of 
invasions  of  right,  of  breaches  of  treaty,  of  the  support 
of  honor,  of  the  necessity  of  retaliation,  when  these  mo- 
tives have  no  influence  on  their  determinations.  Some 
untold  purpose  of  expediency,  or  the  private  quarrel  of 
a  prince  or  the  pique  or  anger  of  a  minister,  are  often 
the  real  motives  to  a  contest,  whilst  its  promoters  are 
loudly  talking  of  the  honor  or  the  safety  of  the 
country. 

But  perhaps  the  most  operative  cause  of  the  popu- 
larity of  war,  and  of  the  facility  with  which  we  engage 
in  it,  consists  in  this  ;  that  an  idea  of  glory  is  attached 
to  military  exploits,  and  of  honor  to  the  military  pro- 
fession. The  glories  of  battle,  and  of  those  who 
perish  in  it,  or  who  return  in  triumph  to  their  country, 
are  favorite  topics  of  declamation  w7ith  the  historian, 
the  biographer,  and  the  poet.  They  have  told  us  a  thou- 
sand times  of  dying  heroes,  who  ' '  resign  their  lives 
amidst  the  joys  of  conquest,  and,  filled  with  their 
country's  glory,  smile  in  death;"  and  thus  every 
excitement  that  eloquence  and  genius  can  command,  is 
employed  to  arouse  that  ambition  of  fame  which  can 
be  gratified  only  at  the  expense  of  blood. 

Into  the  nature  and  principles  of  this  fame  and  glory 
we  have  already  enquired  ;  and  in  the  view  alike  of  virtue 
and  of  intellect,  they  are  low  and  bad.  *  ' '  Glory  is 
the  most  selfish  of  all  passions  except  love."f — ,J  I  can- 
not tell  how  or  why  the  love  of  glory  is  a  less  selfish 
principle  than  the  love  of  riches. ' '  %  Philosophy  and 
intellect  may  therefore  well  despise  it,  and  Christianity 

*  See  Essay  II,  c.  10.     f  West.  Rev.  No.  1,  for  1827. 
\  Mem.  and  Rem.  of  the  late  Jane  Taylor. 


404  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

silently,  yet  emphatically,  condemns  it.  "Christian- 
ity," says  Bishop  Watson,  "quite  annihilates  the  dis- 
position for  martial  glory."  Another  testimony,  and 
from  an  advocate  of  war,  goes  further — No  part  of  the 
heroic  character  is  the  subject  of  the  "  commendation, 
or  precepts,  or  example  of  Christ ;  "  but  the  character 
the  most  opposite  to  the  heroic  is  the  subject  of 
them  all.  * 

Such  is  the  foundation  of  the  glory  which  has  for  so 
many  ages  deceived  and  deluded  multitudes  of  man- 
kind !  Upon  this  foundation  a  structure  has  been 
raised  so  vast,  so  brilliant,  so  attractive,  that  the 
greater  portion  of  mankind  are  content  to  gaze  in  ad- 
miration, without  any  inquiry  into  its  basis  or  any 
splicitude  for  its  durabilty.  If,  however,  it  should  be, 
that  the  gorgeous  temple  will  be  able  to  stand  only  till 
Christian  truth  and  light  become  predominant,  it  surely 
will  be  wise  of  those  who  seek  a  niche  in  its  apartments 
as  their  paramount  and  final  good,  to  pause  ere  they  pro- 
ceed. If  they  desire  a  reputation  that  shall  outlive  guilt 
and  fiction,  let  them  look  to  the  basis  of  military  fame. 
If  this  fame  should  one  day  sink  into  oblivion  and  con- 
tempt, it  will  not  be  the  first  instance  in  which  wide- 
spread glory  has  been  found  to  be  a  glittering  bubble, 
that  has  burst  and  been  forgotten.  Look  at  the  days 
of  chivalry.  Of  the  ten  thousand  Quixotes  of  the 
middle  ages,  where  is  now  the  honor  or  the  fame  ?  yet 
poets  once  sang  their  praises,  and  the  chronicler  of 
their  achievements  believed  he  was  recording  an  ever- 
lasting fame.  Where  are  now  the  glories  of  the  tour- 
nament ?  glories 

11  Of  which  all  Europe  rang  from  side  to  side." 

Where  is  the  champion  whom  princesses  caressed  and 
nobles  envied?     Where  are  now  the  triumphs  of  Duns 
*  Paley  :  Evidences  of  Christianity,  p.  2,  c.  2. 


CHAP.    X.]  CAUSES  OF  WAR.  405 

Scot  us,  and  where  are  the  folios  that  perpetiiated  his 
fame  ?  The  glories  of  war  have  indeed  outlived  these  ; 
human  passions  are  less  mutable  than  human  follies  ; 
but  I  am  willing  to  avow  my  conviction,  that  these 
glories  are  alike  destined  to  sink  into  forgetfulness  ; 
and  that  the  time  is  approaching  when  the  applauses 
of  heroism,  and  the  splendors  of  conquest,  will  be 
remembered  only  as  follies  and  iniquities  that  are  past. 
L,et  him  who  seeks  for  fame,  other  than  that  which  an 
era  of  Christian  purity  will  allow,  make  haste  ;  for  every 
hour  that  he  delays  its  acquisition  will  shorten  its  dur- 
ation. This  is  certain  if  there  be  certainty  in  the 
promises  of  heaven. 

Of  this  factitious  glory  as  a  cause  of  war,  Gibbon 
speaks  in  the  Decline  and  Fall.  ' '  As  long  as  mankind, ' ' 
says  he,  "shall  continue  to  bestow  more  liberal  ap- 
plause on  their  destroyers  than  on  their  benefactors, 
the  thirst  of  military  glory  will  ever  be  the  vice  of  the 
most  exalted  characters. "  "  ' Tis  strange  to  imagine, ' ' 
says  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  that  war,  which  of  all 
things  appears  the  most  savage,  should  be  the  passion 
of  the  most  heroic  spirits." — But  he  gives  us  the  rea- 
son.— "  By  a  small  misguidance  of  the  affection,  a  lover 
of  mankind  becomes  a  ravager  ;  a  hero  and  deliverer 
becomes  an  oppressor  and  destroyer."* 

These  are  amongst  the  great  perpetual  causes  of 
war.  And  what  are  they  ?  First,  that  we  do  not  en- 
quire whether  war  is  right  or  wrong.  Secondly,  That 
we  are  habitually  haughty  and  irritable  in  our  inter- 
course with  other  nations.  Thirdly,  That  war  is  a 
source  of  profit  to  individuals,  and  establishes  profes- 
sions which  are  very  convenient  to  the  middle  and  higher 
ranks  of  life.  Fourthly,  That  it  gratifies  the  ambition 
of  public  men,  and  serves  the  purposes  oj  state  policy. 
Fifthly,      that     notions    of    glory     are    attached     to 

*  Essay  on  the  Freedom  of  Wit  and  Humor. 


406  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY   III. 

warlike  affairs ;  which  glory  is  factitious  and  impure. 
In  the  view  of  reason,  and  especially  in  the  view  of 
religion,  what  is  the  character  of  these  causes  ?  Are 
they  pure?  Are  they  honorable?  Are  they,  when 
connected  with  their  effects,  compatible  with  the  moral 
law  ? — Lastly,  and  especially,  is  it  probable  that  a  sys- 
tem of  which  these  are  the  great  ever-during  causes, 
can  itself  be  good  or  right  ? 

CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR. 

To  expatiate  upon  the  miseries  which  war  brings 
upon  mankind,  appears  a  trite  and  a  needless  employ- 
ment. We  all  know  that  its  evils  are  great  and  dread- 
ful. Yet  the  very  circumstance  that  the  knowledge  is 
familiar,  may  make  it  unoperative  upon  our  sentiments 
and  our  conduct.  It  is  not  the  intensity  of  misery, 
it  is  not  the  extent  of  evil  alone,  which  is  necessary 
to  animate  us  to  that  exertion  which  evil  and  misery 
should  excite  ;  if  it  were,  surely  we  should  be  much 
more  averse  than  we  now  are  to  contribute,  in  word  or 
in  action,  to  the  promotion  of  war. 

But  there  are  mischiefs  attendant  upon  the  system 
which  are  not  to  every  man  thus  familiar,  and  on 
which,  for  that  reason,  it  is  expedient  to  remark.  In 
referring  especially  to  some  of  those  moral  consequences 
of  war  which  commonly  obtain  little  of  our  attention, 
it  may  be  observed,  that  social  and  political  considera- 
tions are  necessarily  involved  in  the  moral  tendency  ; 
for  the  happiness  of  society  is  always  diminished  by  the 
diminution  of  morality  ;  and  enlightened  policy  knows 
that  the  greatest  support  of  a  state  is  the  virtue  of  the 
people. 

And  yet  the  reader  should  bear  in  mind — what  noth- 
ing but  the  frequency  of  the  calamity  can  make  him 
forget — the  intense  sufferings  and  irreparable  depriva- 
tions which  one  battle  inevitably  entails  upon  private 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  407 

life.  These  are  calamities  of  which  the  world  thinks 
little,  and  which,  if  it  thought  of  them,  it  could  not 
remove.  A  father  or  a  husband  can  seldom  be  re- 
placed ;  a  void  is  created  in  the  domestic  felicity  which 
there  is  little  hope  that  the  future  will  fill.  By  the 
slaughter  of  a  war,  there  are  thousands  who  weep  in 
unpitied  and  unnoticed  secrecy,  whom  the  world  does 
not  see  ;  and  thousands  who  retire,  in  silence,  to  hope- 
less poverty,  for  whom  it  does  not  care.  To  these,  the 
conquest  of  a  kingdom  is  of  little  importance.  The 
loss  of  a  protector  or  a  friend  is  ill  repaid  by  empty 
glory.  An  addition  of  territory  may  add  titles  to  a 
king,  but  the  brilliancy  of  a  crown  throws  little  light 
upon  domestic  gloom.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  insist 
upon  these  calamities,  intense,  and  irreparable,  and  un- 
numbered as  they  are  ;  but  those  who  begin  a  war 
without  taking  them  into  their  estimates  of  its  conse- 
quences, must  be  regarded  as,  at  most,  half -seeing  pol- 
iticians. The  legitimate  object  of  political  measures  is 
the  good  of  the  people  ; — and  a  great  sum  of  good  a 
war  must  produce,  if  it  out-balances  even  this  portion  of 
its  mischiefs. 

Nor  should  we  be  forgetful  of  that  dreadful  part  of 
all  warfare,  the  destruction  of  mankind.  The  fre- 
quency with  which  this  destruction  is  represented  to 
our  minds,  has  almost  extinguished  our  perception  of 
its  awfulness  and  horror.  Between  the  years  1141  and 
18 15,  an  interval  of  six  hundred  and  seventy  years, 
our  country  has  been  at  war,  with  France  alone,  two 
hundred  arid  sixty-six  years.  If  to  this  we  add  our 
wars  with  other  countries,  probably  we  shall  find  that 
one-half  of  the  last  six  or  seven  centuries  has  been 
spent  by  this  country  in  war  !  A  dreadful  picture  of 
human  violence  !  How  many  of  our  fellow-men,  of  our 
fellow- Christians,  have  these  centuries  of  slaughter  cut 


408  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

off !  What  is  the  sum  total  of  the  misery  of  their 
deaths  ?* 

When  political  writers  expatiate  upon  the  extent  and 
the  evils  of  taxation,  they  do  not  sufficiently  bear  in 
mind  the  reflection,  that  almost  all  our  taxation  is  the 
effect  of  war.  A  man  declaims  upon  national  debts. 
He  ought  to  declaim  upon  the  parent  of  those  debts. 
Do  we  reflect  that  if  heavy  taxation  entails  evils  and 
misery  upon  the  community,  that  misery  and  those 
evils  are  inflicted  upon  us  by  war  ?  The  amount  of 
supplies  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  was  about  seventy  mil- 
lions ;f  and  of  this  about  sixty-six  millions!  was  ex- 
pended in  war.  Where  is  our  equivalent  good  ? 

Such  considerations  ought,  undoubtedly,  to  influence 
the  conduct  of  public  men  in  their  disagreements  with 
other  states  even  if  higher  considerations  do  not  influ- 
ence it.  They  ought  to  form  part  of  the  calculations 
of  the  evil  of  hostility.  I  believe  that  a  greater  mass 
of  human  suffering  and  loss  of  human  enjoyment  are 
occasioned  by  the  pecuniary  distresses  of  a  war,  than 
any  ordinary  advantages  of  a  war  compensate.  But 
this  consideration  seems  too  remote  to  obtain  our  notice. 
Anger  at  offence  or  hope  of  triumph,  overpowers  the 
sober  calculations  of  reason,  and  outbalances  the  weight 
of  after  and  long-continued  calamities.  The  only  ques- 
tion appears  to  be,  whether  taxes  enough  for  a  war  can 
be  raised,  and  whether  a  people  will  be  willing  to  pay 
them.  But  the  great  question  ought  to  be,  (setting 
questions  of  Christianity  aside,)   whether  the  nation 

*  "Since  the  peace  of  Amiens  more  than  four  millions  of 
human  beings  have  been  sacrificed  to  the  personal  ambition  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte." — Quarterly  Review,  25  Art.  1,  1825. 

f  The  sum  was  ^69,815,457. 

%  The  sum  was  ^65,853,799.  "  The  nine  years'  war  of  1739, 
cost  this  nation  upwards  of  sixty-four  millions  without  gaining 
any  object."  Chalmer's  Estimate  of  the  Strength  of  Great 
Britain. 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  409 

will  gain  as  much  by  the  war  as  they  will  lose  by  tax- 
ation and  its  other  calamities. 

If  the  happiness  of  the  people  were,  what  it  ought  to 
be,  the  primary  and  the  ultimate  object  of  national 
measures,  I  think  that  the  policy  which  pursued  this 
object,  would  often  find  that  even  the  pecuniary  dis- 
tresses resulting  from  a  war  make  a  greater  deduction 
from  the  quantum  of  felicity,  than  those  evils  which 
the  war  may  have  been  designed  to  avoid. 

' '  But  war  does  more  harm  to  the  morals  of  men  than 
even  to  their  property  and  persons."*  If,  indeed,  it 
depraves  our  morals,  more  than  it  injures  our  persons 
and  deducts  from  our  property,  how  enormous  must  its 
mischiefs  be  ! 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  greater  sum  of  moral  evil 
resulting  from  war,  is  suffered  by  those  who  are  imme- 
diately engaged  in  it,  or  by  the  public.  The  mischief 
is  most  extensive  upon  the  community,  but  upon  the 
profession  it  is  most  intense. 

"  Rara  fides  pietasque  viris  qui  castra  sequuntur" — L,ucan. 

No  one  pretends  to  applaud  the  morals  of  an  army,  and 
for  its  religion,  few  think  of  it  at  all.  The  fact  is  too 
notorious  to  be  insisted  upon,  that  thousands  who  had 
filled  their  stations  in  life  with  propriety,  and  been  vir. 
tuous  from  principle,  have  lost,  by  a  military  life,  both 
the  practice  and  the  regard  of  morality  ;  and  when  they 
have  become  habituated  to  the  vices  of  war,  have 
laughed  at  their  honest  and  plodding  brethren,  who  are 
still  spiritless  enough  for  virtue  or  stupid  enough  for 
piety. 

Does  any  man  ask,  What  occasions  depravity  in  mil- 
itary life?    I  answer  in  the  words  of  Robert  Hall.f 
"  War  reverses,  with  respect  to  its  objects,  all  the  rules 
of  morality.     It  is  nothing  less  than  a  temporary  repeal 
*  Erasmus.  f  Sermon,  1822. 


4IO  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY   III. 

of  all  the  principles  of  virtue.  It  is  a  system  out  of 
which  almost  all  the  virtues  are  excluded,  and  in  which 
nearly  all  the  vices  are  incorporated."  And  it  requires 
no  sagacity  to  discover,  that  those  who  are  engaged  in 
a  practice  which  reverses  all  the  rules  of  morality — 
which  repeals  all  the  principles  of  virtue,  and  in  which 
nearly  all  the  vices  are  incorporated,  cannot,  without 
the  intervention  of  a  miracle,  retain  their  minds  and 
morals  undepraved. 

I^ook  for  illustration  to  the  familiarity  with  the 
plunder  of  property  and  the  slaughter  of  mankind 
which  war  induces.  He  who  plunders  the  citizen  of 
another  nation  without  remorse  or  reflection,  and  bears 
away  the  spoil  with  triumph,  will  inevitably  lose  some- 
thing of  his  principles  of  probity.*  He  who  is  familiar 
with  slaughter,  who  has  himself  often  perpetrated  it, 
and  who  exults  in  the  perpetration,  will  not  retain  un- 
depraved the  principles  of  virtue.  His  moral  feelings 
are  blunted  ;  his  moral  vision  is  obscured  ;  his  princi- 
ples are  shaken  ;  an  inroad  is  made  upon  their  integ- 
rity, and  it  is  an  inroad  that  makes  after  inroads  the 
more  easy.  Mankind  do  not  generally  resist  the  influ- 
ence of  habit.  If  we  rob  and  shoot  those  who  are 
"  enemies  "  to-day,  we  are  in  some  degree  prepared  to 
shoot  and  rob  those  who  are  not  enemies  to-morrow. 
I^aw  may  indeed  still  restrain  us  from  violence  ;  but 
the  power  and  efficiency  of  principle  is  diminished  : 
and  this  alienation  of  the  mind  from  the  practice,  the 
love,  and  the  perception  of  Christian  purity,  therefore, 
of  necessity  extends  its  influence  to  the  other  circum- 
stances of  life.  The  whole  evil  is  imputable  to  war  ; 
and  we  say  that  this  evil  forms  a  powerful  evidence 
*  See  Smollett's  England,  vol.  4,  p.  376.  "This  terrible 
truth,  which  I  cannot  help  repeating,  must  be  acknowledged  : — 
indifference  and  selfishness  are  the  predominant  feelings  in  an 
army."  Miot's  M^moires  de  l'Exp£dition  en  Egypte,  &c. 
Mem.  in  the  MSS. 


CHAP.    X.I  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  411 

against  it,  whether  we  direct  that  evidence  to  the  ab- 
stract question  of  its  lawfulness,  or  to  the  practical 
question  of  its  expediency.  That  can  scarcely  be  law- 
ful which  necessarily  occasions  such  wide-spread  im- 
morality. That  can  scarcely  be  expedient,  which  is  so 
pernicious  to  virtue,  and  therefore  to  the  state. 

The  economy  of  war  requires  of  every  soldier  an  im- 
plicit submission  to  his  superior  ;  and  this  submission 
is  required  of  every  gradation  of  rank  to  that  above  it. 
' '  I  swear  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  officers  who  are  set 
over  me:  so  help  me,  God."  This  system  maybe 
necessary  to  hostile  operations,  but  I  think  it  is  un- 
questionably adverse  to  intellectual  and  moral  excel- 
lence. 

The  very  nature  of  unconditional  obedience  implies 
the  relinquishment  of  the  use  of  the  reasoning  powers. 
Little  more  is  required  of  the  soldier  than  that  he  be 
obedient  and  brave.  His  obedience  is  that  of  an 
animal,  which  is  moved  by  a  goad  or  a  bit,  without 
judgment  of  his  own  ;  and  his  bravery  is  that  of  a 
mastiff  that  fights  whatever  mastiff  others  put  before 
him.*  It  is  obvious  that- in  such  agency  the  intellect 
and  the  understanding  have  little  part.  Now  I  think 
that  this  is  important.  He  who,  with  whatever  motive, 
resigns  the  direction  of  his  conduct  implicitly  to 
another,  surely  cannot  retain  that  erectness  and  inde- 
pendence of  mind,  that  manly  consciousness  of  mental 
freedom,  which  is  one  of  the  highest  privileges  of  our 
nature.  A  British  captain  declares  that '  \  the  tendency 
of  strict  discipline,  sucli  as  prevails  on  board  ships  of 
war,  where  almost  every  act  of  a  man's  life  is  regulated 
by  the  orders  of  his  superiors,  is  to  weaken  the  faculty 

*  By  one  article  of  the  Constitutional  Code  even  of  republican 
France,  "the  army  were  expressly  prohibited  from  deliberating 
on  any  subject  whatever." 


412  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

of  independent  thought."*  Thus  the  rational  being 
becomes  reduced  in  the  intellectual  scale :  an 
encroachment  is  made  upon  the  integrity  of  its  inde- 
pendence. God  has  given  us,  individually,  capacities 
for  the  regulation  of  our  individual  conduct.  To  re- 
resign  its  direction,  therefore,  to  the  absolute  disposal 
of  another,  appears  to  be  an  unmanly  and  unjustifiable 
relinquishment  of  the  privileges  which  he  has  granted 
to  us.  And  the  effect  is  obviously  bad  ;  for  although 
no  character  will  apply  universally  to  any  large  class 
of  men,  and  although  the  intellectual  character  of  the 
military  profession  does  not  result  only  from  this  un- 
happy subjection  ;  yet  it  will  not  be  disputed,  that  the 
honorable  exercise  of  intellect  amongst  that  profession 
is  not  relatively  great.  It  is  not  from  them  that  we 
expect,  because  it  is  not  from  them  that  we  generally 
find,  those  vigorous  exertions  of  intellect  which  dignify 
our  nature  and  which  extend  the  boundaries  of  human 
knowledge. 

But  the  intellectual  effects  of  military  subjection 
form  but  a  small  portion  of.  its  evils.  The  great  mis- 
chief is,  that  it  requires  the  relinquishment  of  our 
moral  agency  ;  that  it  requires  us  to  do  what  is  opposed 
to  our  consciences,  and  what  we  know  to  be  wrong. 
A  soldier  must  obey,  how  criminal  soever  the  com- 
mand, and  how  criminal  soever  he  knows  it  to  be.  It 
is  certain,  that  of  those  who  compose  armies,  many 
commit  actions  which  they  believe  to  be  wicked,  and 
which  they  would  not  commit  but  for  the  obligations 
of  a  military  life.  Although  .a  soldier  determinately 
believes  that  the  war  is  unjust,  although  he  is  con- 
vinced that  his  particular  part  of  the  service  is  atro- 
ciously   criminal,    still     he    must    proceed — he   must 

*  Captain  Basil  Hall  :  Voyage  to  L,oo  Choo,  c.  2.  We  make 
no  distinction  between  the  military  and  naval  professions,  and 
employ  one  word  to  indicate  both. 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  4I3 

prosecute  the   purposes  of    injustice  or    robbery,   he 
must  participate  in  the  guilt,  and  be  himself  a  robber. 

To  what  a  situation  is  a  rational  and  responsible 
being  reduced,  who  commits  actions,  good  or  bad,  at 
the  word  of  another  ?  I  can  conceive  no  greater  degra- 
dation. It  is  the  lowest,  the  final  abjectness  of  the 
moral  nature.  It  is  this  if  we  abate  the  glitter  of  war, 
and  if  we  add  this  glitter  it  is  nothing  more. 

Such  a  resignation  of  our  moral  agency  is  not  con- 
tended for,  or  tolerated  in  any  one  other  circumstance 
of  human  life.  War  stands  upon  this  pinnacle  of  de- 
pravity alone.  She,  only,  in  the  supremacy  of  crime, 
has  told  us  that  she  has  abolished  even  the  obligation 
to  be  virtuous. 

Some  writers  who  have  perceived  the  monstrousness 
of  this  system,  have  told  us  that  a  soldier  should  as- 
sure himself,  before  he  engages  in  a  war,  that  it  is  a 
lawful  and  just  one  ;  and  they  acknowledge  that,  if 
he  does  not  feel  this  assurance,  he  is  a  "  murderer. ' ' 
But  how  is  he  to  know  that  the  war  is  just  ?  It  is  fre- 
quently difficult  for  the  people  distinctly  to  discover 
what  the  objects  of  a  war  are.  And  if  the  soldier 
knew  that  it  was  just  in  its  commencement,  how  is  he 
to  know  that  it  will  continue  just  in  its  prosecution? 
Every  war  is,  in  some  parts  of  its  course,  wicked  and 
unjust;  and  who  can  tell  what  that  course  will  be? 
You  say — When  he  discovers  any  inj  ustice  or  wicked- 
ness, let  him  withdraw  :  we  answer,  He  cannot  ;  and 
the  truth  is,  that  there  is  no  way  of  avoiding  the  evil, 
but  by  avoiding  the  army. 

It  is  an  enquiry  of  much  interest,  under  what  cir- 
cumstances of  responsibility  a  man  supposes  himself  to 
be  placed,  who  thus  abandons  and  violates  his  own 
sense  of  rectitude  and  of  his  duties.  Either  he  is  re- 
sponsible for  his  actions,  or  he  is  not ;  and  the  question 


414  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

is  a  serious  one  to  determine.*  Christianity  has  cer- 
tainly never  stated  any  cases  in  which  personal  re- 
sponsibility ceases.  If  she  admits  such  cases,  she  has 
at  least  not  told  us  so  ;  but  she  has  told  us,  explicitly 
and  repeatedly,  that  she  does  require  individual  obe- 
dience and  impose  individual  responsibility.  She  has 
made  no  exceptions  to  the  imperativeness  of  her  obli- 
gations, whether  we  are  required  by  others  to  neglect 
them  or  not ;  and  I  can  discover  in  her  sanctions  no 
reason  to  suppose,  that  in  her  final  adjudications  she 
admits  the  plea,  that  another  required  us  to  do  that 
which  she  required  us  to  forbear. — But  it  may  be  feared, 
it  may  be  believed,  that  how  little  soever  religion  will 
abate  of  the  responsibility  of  those  who  obey,  she  will 
impose  not  a  little  upon  those  who  command.  They, 
at  least,  are  answerable  for  the  enormities  of  war  :  un- 
less, indeed,  any  one  shall  tell  me  that  responsibility 
attaches  nowhere  ;  that  that  which  would  be  wicked- 
ness in  another  man,  is  innocence  in  a  soldier  ;  and  that 
heaven  has  granted  to  the  directors  of  war  a  privileged 
immunity,  by  virtue  of  which  crime  incurs  no  guilt 
and  receives  no  punishment. 

And  here  it  is  fitting  to  observe,  that  the  obedience 
to  arbitrary  power  which  war  exacts,  possesses  more 
of  the  character  of  servility,  and  even  of  slavery,  than 
we  are  accustomed  to  suppose.  I  will  acknowledge 
that  when  I  see  a  company  of  men  in  a  stated  dress, 

*  Vattel  indeed  tells  us  that  soldiers  ought  to  '  •  submit  their 
judgment."  "  What,"  says  he,  "would  be  the  consequence,  if 
at  every  step  of  the  Sovereign  the  subjects  were  at  liberty  to 
weigh  the  justice  of  his  reasons,  and  refuse  to  march  to  a  war 
which,  to  them,  might  appear  unjust?  "  Law  of  Nat.  b.  3,  c. 
11,  sec.  187.  Gisborne  holds  very  different  language.  "It  is," 
he  says,  "  at  all  times  the  duty  of  an  Englishman  steadfastly  to 
decline  obeying  any  orders  of  his  superiors,  which  his  conscience 
should  tell  him  were  in  any  degree  impious  or  unjust."  Duties 
of  Men. 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  415 

and  of  a  stated  color,  ranged,  rank  and  file,  in  the  at- 
titude of  obedience,  turning  or  walking  at  the  word  of 
another,  now  changing  the  position  of  a  limb  and  now 
altering  the  angle  of  a  foot,  I  feel  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  system  that  is  wrong — something  incon- 
gruous with  the  proper  dignity,  with  the  intellectual 
station  of  man.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  be 
charged  with  indulging  in  idle  sentiment  or  idle  affecta- 
tion. If  I  hold  unusual  language  upon  the  subject,  let 
it  be  remembered  that  the  subject  is  itself  unusual.  I 
will  retract  my  affectation  and  sentiment,  if  the  reader 
will  show  me  any  case  in  life  parallel  to  that  to  which 
I  have  applied  it. 

No  one  questions  whether  military  power  be  arbi- 
trary. And  what  are  the  customary  feelings  of  man- 
kind with  respect  to  a  subjection  to  arbitrary  power  ? 
How  do  we  feel  and  think,  when  we  hear  of  a  person 
who  is  obliged  to  do  whatever  other  men  command, 
and  who,  the  moment  he  refuses,  is  punished  for  at- 
tempting to  be  free  ?  If  a  man  orders  his  servant  to 
do  a  given  action,  he  is  at  liberty,  if  he  thinks  the 
action  improper,  or  if,  from  any  other  cause,  he  choose 
not  to  do  it,  to  refuse  his  obedience.  Far  other  is  the 
nature  of  military  subjection.  The  soldier  is  compelled 
to  obey,  whatever  be  his  inclination  or  his  will.  It 
matters  not  whether  he  have  entered  the  service 
voluntarily  or  involuntarily.  Being  in  it,  he  has  but 
one  alternative  —  submission  to  arbitrary  power,  or 
punishment — the  punishment  of  death  perhaps — for 
refusing  to  submit.  Let  the  reader  imagine  to  himself 
any  other  cause  or  purpose  for  which  freemen  shall  be 
subjected  to  such  a  condition,  and  he  will  then  see  that 
condition  in  its  proper  light.  The  influence  of  habit 
and  the  gloss  of  public  opinion  make  situations  that 
would  otherwise  be  loathsome  and  revolting,  not  only 
tolerable  but  pleasurable.     Take  away  this  influence 


416  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III, 

and  this  gloss  from  the  situation  of  a  soldier,  and  what 
should  we  call  it  ?  We  should  call  it  a  state  of  degra- 
dation and  of  bondage.  But  habit  and  public  opinion, 
although  they  may  influence  notions,  cannot  alter 
things.  It  is  a  state  intellectually,  morally,  and 
politically,  of  bondage  and  degradation. 

But  the  reader  will  say  that  this  submission  to  arbi- 
trary power  is  necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  war.  I 
know  it ;  and  that  is  the  very  point  for  observation.  It 
is  because  it  is  necessary  to  war  that  it  is  noticed  here  ; 
for  a  brief  but  clear  argument  results  : — That  custom 
to  which  such  a  state  of  mankind  is  necessary,  must 
inevitably  be  bad  ; — it  must  inevitably  be  adverse  to 
rectitude  and  to  Christianity .  So  deplorable  is  the  bond- 
age which  war  produces,  that  we  often  hear,  during  a 
war,  of  subsidies  from  one  nation  to  another,  for  the 
loan,  or  rather  for  the  purchase  of  an  army. — To  bor- 
row ten  thousand  men  who  know  nothing  of  our 
quarrel  and  care  nothing  for  it,  to  help  us  to  slaughter 
their  fellows  !  To  pay  for  their  help  in  guineas  to  their 
sovereign  !     Well  has  it  been  exclaimed, 

"  War  is  a  game,  that,  were  their  subjects  wise, 
Kings  would  not  play  at." 

A  prince  sells  his  subjects  as  a  farmer  sells  his 
cattle  ;  and  sends  them  to  destroy  a  people,  whom,  if 
they  had  been  higher  bidders,  he  would  perhaps  have 
sent  them  to  defend.  The  historian  has  to  record  such 
miserable  facts,  as  that  a  potentate's  troops  were,  dur- 
ing one  war,  ' '  hired  to  the  king  of  Great  Britain  and 
his  enemies  alternately,  as  the  scale  of  convenience 
happened  to  preponderate  !  "  *  That  a  large  number 
of  persons  with  the  feelings  and  reason  of  men,  should 
coolly  listen  to  the  bargain  of  their  sale,  should  com- 
pute the  guineas  that  will   pay  for  their  blood,   and 

*  Smollet's  England,  v.  4,  p.  330. 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OE  WAR.  417 

should  then  quietly  be  led  to  a  place  where  they  are  to  kill 
people  towards  whom  they  have  no  animosity,  is  simply 
wonderful.  To  what  has  inveteracy  of  habit  reconciled 
mankind  !  I  have  no  capacity  of  supposing  a  case  of 
slavery,  if  slavery  be  denied  in  this.  Men  have  been 
sold  in  another  continent,  and  philanthropy  has  been 
shocked  and  aroused  to  interference  ;  yet  these  men 
were  sold  not  to  be  slaughtered  but  to  work  :  but  of 
the  purchases  and  sales  of  the  world's  political  slave- 
dealers,  what  does  philanthropy  think  or  care  ?  There 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  upon  other  subjects  of 
horror,  similar  familiarity  of  habit  would  produce 
similar  effects  ;  or  that  he  who  heedlessly  contemplates 
the  purchase  of  an  army,  wants  nothing  but  this 
familiarity  to  make  him  heedlessly  look  on  at  the  com- 
mission of  parricide. 

Yet  I  do  not  know  whether,  in  its  effects  on  the  mil- 
itary character,  the  greatest  moral  evil  of  war  is  to  be 
sought.  Upon  the  community  its  effects  are  indeed 
less  apparent,  because  they  who  are  the  secondary  sub- 
jects of  the  immoral  influence,  are  less  intensely  affected 
by  it  than  the  immediate  agents  of  its  diffusion.  But 
whatever  is  deficient  in  the  degree  of  evil,  is  probably 
more  than  compensated  by  its  extent.  The  influence 
is  like  that  of  a  continual  and  noxious  vapor  :  we 
neither  regard  nor  perceive  it,  but  it  secretly  under- 
mines the  moral  health. 

Every  one  knows  that  vice  is  contagious.  The  de- 
pravity of  one  man  has  always  a  tendency  to  deprave 
his  neighbors,  and  it  therefore  requires  no  unusual 
acuteness  to  discover,  that  the  prodigious  mass  of  im- 
morality and  crime  which  is  accumulated  by  a  war, 
must  have  a  powerful  effect  in  ' '  demoralizing ' '  the 
public.  But  there  is  one  circumstance  connected  with 
the  injurious  influence  of  war,  which  makes  it  pecul- 
iarly operative  and  malignant.     It  is,  that  we  do  not 


4l8  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

hate  or  fear  the  influence,  and  do  not  fortify  ourselves 
against  it.  Other  vicious  influences  insinuate  them- 
selves into  our  minds  by  stealth  ;  but  this  we  receive 
with  open  embrace.  Glory,  and  patiotism,  and  brav- 
ery, and  conquest,  are  bright  and  glittering  things. 
Who,  wrhen  he  is  looking,  delighted,  upon  these  things, 
is  armed  against  the  mischiefs  which  they  veil  ? 

The  evil  is,  in  its  own  nature,  of  almost  universal 
operation.  During  a  war,  a  whole  people  become 
familiarized  with  the  utmost  excesses  of  enormity — 
with  the  utmost  intensity  of  human  wickedness — and 
they  rejoice  and  exult  in  them  ;  so  that  there  is  proba- 
bly not  an  individual  in  a  hundred  who  does  not  lose 
something  of  his  Christian  principles  by  a  ten  years' 
war. 

"It  is,  in  my  mind,"  said  Fox,  "no  small  misfor- 
tune to  live  at  a  period  when  scenes  of  horror  and  blood 
are  frequent." — "  One  of  the  most  evil  consequences  of 
war  is,  that  it  tends  to  render  the  hearts  of  mankind 
callous  to  the  feelings  and  sentiments  of  humanity."* 

Those  who  know  what  the  moral  law  of  God  is,  and 
who  feel  an  interest  in  the  virtue  and  the  happiness  of 
the  world,  will  not  regard  the  animosity  of  party  and 
the  restlessness  of  resentment  which  are  produced  by  a 
war,  as  trifling  evils.  If  any  thing  be  opposite  to 
Christianity,  it  is  retaliation  and  revenge.  In  the  ob- 
ligation to  restrain  these  dispositions  much  of  the  char- 
acteristic placability  of  Christianity  consists.  The  very 
essence  and  spirit  of  our  religion  are  abhorrent  from 
resentment. — The  very  essence  and  spirit  of  war  are 
promotive  of  resentment  ;  and  what,  then,  must  be 
their  mutual  adverseness  ?  That  war  excites  these  pas- 
sions, needs  not  to  be  proved.  When  a  war  is  in  con- 
templation, or  when  it  has  been  begun,  what  are  the 
endeavors  of  its  promoters  ?  They  animate  us  by  every 
*  Fell's  Life  of  C.  J.  Fox. 


CHAP.    X.]  CONSEQUENCES  OF  WAR.  419 

artifice  of  excitement  to  hatred  and  animosity.  Pam- 
phlets, placards,  newspapers,  caricatures — every  agent 
is  in  requisition  to  irritate  us  into  malignity.  Nay, 
dreadful  as  it  is,  the  pulpit  resounds  with  declamations 
to  stimulate  our  too  sluggish  resentment,  and  to  invite 
us  to  slaughter. — And  thus  the  most  unchristianlike  of 
all  our  passions,  the  passion  which  it  is  most  the  object 
of  our  religion  to  repress,  is  excited  and  fostered. 
Christianity  cannot  be  flourishing  under  circumstances 
like  these.  The  more  effectually  we  are  animated  to 
war,  the  more  nearly  we  extinguish  the  dispositions  of 
our  religion.  War  and  Christianity  are  like  the  oppo- 
site ends  of  a  balance,  of  which  one  is  depressed  by  the 
elevation  of  the  other. 

These  are  the  consequences  which  make  war  dread- 
ful to  a  state.  Slaughter  and  devastation  are  suffi- 
ciently terrible,  but  their  collateral  evils  are  their 
greatest.  It  is  the  immoral  feeling  that  war  diffuses — 
it  is  the  depravation  of  principle,  which  forms  the  mass 
of  its  mischief. 

To  attempt  to  pursue  the  consequences  of  war 
through  all  their  ramifications  of  evil,  were,  however, 
both  endless  and  vain.  It  is  a  moral  gangrene,  which 
diffuses  its  humors  through  the  whole  political  and 
social  system.  To  expose  its  mischief,  is  to  exhibit  all 
evil  ;  for  there  is  no  evil  which  it  does  not  occasion, 
and  it  has  much  that  is  peculiar  to  itself. 

That,  together  with  its  multiplied  evils,  war  produces 
some  good,  I  have  no  wish  to  deny.  I  know  that  it 
sometimes  elicits  valuable  qualities  which  had  other- 
wise been  concealed,  and  that  it  often  produces  collat- 
eral and  adventitious,  and  sometimes  immediate 
advantages.  If  all  this  could  be  denied,  it  would  be 
needless  to  deny  it  ;  for  it  is  of  no  consequence  to  the 
question  whether  it  be  proved.  That  any  wide-ex- 
tended system  should  not  produce  some  benefits,  can 


420  I,AWFUI,NESS   OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

never  happen.  In  such  a  system ,  it  were  an  unheard-of- 
purity  of  evil,  which  was  evil  without  any  mixture  of 
good. — But,  to  compare  the  ascertained  advantages  of 
war  with  its  ascertained  mischiefs  and  to  maintain  a 
question  as  to  the  preponderance  of  the  balance,  im- 
plies, not  ignorance,  but  disingenuousness,  not  inca- 
pacity to  decide,  but  a  voluntary  concealment  of  truth. 
And  why  do  we  insist  upon  these  consequences  of 
war  ! — Because  the  review  prepares  the  reader  for  a 
more  accurate  judgment  respecting  its  lawfulness. 
Because  it  reminds  him  what  war  is,  and  because, 
knowing  and  remembering  what  it  is,  he  will  be  the 
better  able  to  compare  it  with  the  standard  of  rectitude. 

LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR. 

I  would  recommend  to  him  who  would  estimate  the 
moral  character  of  war,  to  endeavor  to  forget  that  he 
has  ever  presented  to  his  mind  the  idea  of  a  battle,  and 
to  endeavor  to  contemplate  it  with  those  emotions 
which  it  would  excite  in  the  mind  of  a  being  wTho  had 
never  before  heard  of  human  slaughter.  The  prevail- 
ing emotions  of  such  a  being  would  be  astonishment 
and  horror.  If  he  were  shocked  by  the  horribleness  of 
the  scene,  he  would  be  amazed  at  its  absurdity.  That 
a  large  number  of  persons  should  assemble  by  agree- 
ment, and  deliberately  kill  one  another,  appears  to  the 
understanding  a  proceeding  so  preposterous,  so  mon- 
strous, that  I  think  a  being  such  as  I  have  supposed 
would  inevitably  conclude  that  they  were  mad.  Nor 
is  it  likely,  if  it  were  attempted  to  explain  to  him  some 
motives  to  such  conduct,  that  he  would  be  able  to  com- 
prehend how  any  possible  circumstances  could  make  it 
reasonable.  The  ferocity  and  prodigious  folly  of  the 
act  wrould,  in  his  estimation,  outbalance  the  weight  of 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS   OF  WAR.  421 

every  conceivable  motive,  and  he  would  turn  unsatis- 
fied away. 

"  Astonished  at  the  madness  of  mankind." 

There  is  an  advantage  in  making  suppositions  such 
as  these  ;  because  when  the  mind  has  been  familiar- 
ized to  a  practice,  however  monstrous  or  inhuman,  it 
loses  some  of  its  sagacity  of  moral  perception ;  the 
practice  is  perhaps  veiled  in  glittering  fictions,  or  the 
mind  is  become  callous  to  its  enormities.  But  if  the 
subject  is,  by  some  circumstance,  presented  to  the 
mind  unconnected  wTith  any  of  its  previous  associations, 
we  see  it  with  a  new  judgment  and  new  feelings  ;  and 
wonder,  perhaps,  that  we  have  not  felt  so  or  thought 
so  before.  And  such  occasions  it  is  the  part  of  a  wise 
man  to  seek  ;  since,  if  they  never  happen  to  us,  it  will 
often  be  difficult  for  us  accurately  to  estimate  the  qual- 
ities of  human  actions,  or  to  determine  whether  we 
approve  them  from  a  decision  of  our  judgment,  or 
whether  we  yield  to  them  only  the  acquiescence  of 
habit. 

It  may  properly  be  a  subject  of  wonder  that  the 
arguments  which  are  brought  to  justify  a  custom  such 
as  war  receive  so  little  investigation.  It  must  be  a 
studious  ingenuity  of  mischief  which  could  devise  a 
practice  more  calamitous  or  horrible ;  and  yet  it  is  a 
practice  of  which  it  rarely  occurs  to  us  to  enquire  into 
the  necessity,  or  to  ask  whether  it  cannot  be,  or  ought 
not  to  be  avoided.  In  one  truth,  however,  all  will  ac- 
quiesce— that  the  arguments  in  favor  of  such  a  practice 
should  be  unanswerably  strong. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  experience  and  the  prac- 
tice of  other  ages  have  superseded  the  necessity  of  en- 
quiry in  our  own  ;  that  there  can  be  no  reason  to 
question  the  lawfulness  of  that  which  has  been  sanc- 
tioned by  forty  centuries  ;  or  that  he  who  presumes  to 


422  I,AWFUI,NESS   OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

question  it,  is  amusing  himself  with  schemes  of  vision- 
ary philanthropy.  "There  is  not,  it  maybe,"  says 
Lord  Clarendon,  "  a  greater  obstruction  to  the  investi- 
gation of  truth  or  the  improvement  of  knowledge,  than 
the  too  frequent  appeal,  and  the  too  supine  resignation 
of  our  understanding  to  antiquity."*  Whosoever  pro- 
poses an  alteration  of  existing  institutions,  will  meet, 
from  some  men,  with  a  sort  of  instinctive  opposition, 
which  appears  to  be  influenced  by  no  process  of  reason- 
ing, by  no  considerations  of  propriety  or  principles  of 
rectitude  which  defends  the  existing  system  because  it 
exists,  and  which  would  have  equally  defended  its 
opposite  if  that  had  been  the  oldest.  ■ '  Nor  is  it  out 
of  modesty  that  we  have  this  resignation,  or  that  we 
do,  in  truth,  think  those  who  have  gone  before  us  to  be 
wiser  than  ourselves  ;  we  are  as  proud  and  as  peevish 
as  any  of  our  progenitors  ;  but  it  is  out  of  laziness  ;  we 
will  rather  take  their  words  than  take  the  pains  to  ex- 
amine the  reason  they  governed  themselves  by.  "f  To 
those  who  urge  objections  from  the  authority  of  ages, 
it  is,  indeed,  a  sufficient  answer  to  say,  that  they  apply 
to  every  long-continued  custom.  Slave-dealers  urged 
them  against  the  friends  of  the  abolition  ;  Papists  urged 
them  against  Wickliffe  and  Luther,  and  the  Athenians 
probably  thought  it  a  good  objection  to  an  apostle, 
"  that  he  seemed  to  be  a  setter  forth  of  strange  gods." 
It  is  some  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  give  on  a  question 
of  this  nature,  the  testimony  of  some  great  minds 
against  the  lawfulness  of  war,  opposed,  as  these  testi- 
monies are,  to  the  general  prejudice  and  the  general 
practice  of  the  world.  It  has  been  observed  by  Bec- 
caria,  that  ' '  it  is  the  fate  of  great  truths  to  glow  only 
like  a  flash  of  lightning  amidst  the  dark  clouds  in  which 
error  has  enveloped  the  universe;"  and  if  our  testi- 
monies are  few  or  transient,  it  matters  not,  so  that 
*  Ivord  Clarendon's  Essays.  t  Id. 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF    WAR.  423 

their  light  be  the  light  of  truth.  There  are,  indeed, 
many,  who  in  describing  the  horrible  particulars  of  a 
siege  or  a  battle,  indulge  in  some  declamation  on  the 
horrors  of  war,  such  as  has  been  often  repeated,  and 
often  applauded,  and  as  often  forgotten.  But  such 
declamations  are  of  little  value  and  of  little  effect ;  he 
who  reads  the  next  paragraph  finds,  probably,  that  he 
is  invited  to  follow  the  path  to  glory  and  to  victory  ; — to 
share  the  hero's  da?iger  and  partake  the  hero's  praise  ; 
and  he  soon  discovers  that  the  moralizing  parts  of  his 
author  are  the  impulse  of  feelings  rather  than  of  prin- 
ciples, and  thinks  that  though  it  may  be  very  well  to 
write,  yet  it  is  better  to  forget  them. 

There  are,  however,  testimonies,  delivered  in  the 
calm  of  reflection,  by  acute  and  enlightened  men, 
which  may  reasonably  be  allowed  at  least  so  much 
weight  as  to  free  the  present  enquiry  from  the  charge 
of  being  wild  or  visionary.  Christianity  indeed  needs 
no  such  auxiliaries  ;  but  if  they  induce  an  examination 
of  her  duties,  a  wise  man  will  not  wish  them  to  be  dis- 
regarded. 

"They  who  defend  war,"  says  Erasmus,  "must  de- 
fend the  dispositions  which  lead  to  war  :  and  these  dis- 
positions are  absolutely  forbidden  by  the  gospel. — Since 
the  time  that  Jesus  Christ  said,  Put  up  thy  sword  into 
its  scabbard,  Christians  ought  not  to  go  to  war. — Christ 
suffered  Peter  to  fall  into  an  error  in  this  matter,  on 
purpose  that,  when  he  had  put  up  Peter's  sword,  it 
might  remain  no  longer  a  doubt  that  war  was  pro- 
hibited, which,  before  that  order  had  been  considered  as 
allowable." — "  Wickliffe  seems  to  have  thought  it  was 
wrong  to  take  away  the  life  of  man  on  any  account, 
and  that  war  was  utterly  unlawful."* — "lam  per- 
suaded," says  the  Bishop  of  Landaff,  "  that  when  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  shall  exert  its  proper  influence  war 

*  Priestly. 


424  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY   III. 

will  cease  throughout  the  whole  Christian  world."* 
"War,"  says  the  same  acute  prelate,  "has  practices 
and  principles  peculiar  to  itself,  which  but  ill  quadrate 
with  the  rule  of  moral  rectitude,  and  are  quite  abhorrent 
from  the  benignity  of  Christianity.'''  f  A  living  writer 
of  eminence  bears  this  remarkable  testimony  : — ' '  There 
is  but  one  community  of  Christians  in  the  world,  and 
that  unhappily  of  all  communities  one  of  the  smallest, 
enlightened  enough  to  understand  the  prohibition  of 
war  by  our  Divine  Master ;  in  its  plai?i,  literal,  and  un- 
deniable sense,  and  conscientious  enough  to  obey  it, 
subduing  the  very  instinct  of  nature  to  obedience. ' '  X 

Dr.  Vicessimus  Knox  speaks  in  language  equally 
specific: — "  Morality  and  religion  forbid  war,  in  its 
motives,  conduct  and  consequences."  § 

Those  who  have  attended  to  the  mode  in  which  the 
moral  law  is  instituted  in  the  expressions  of  the  will  of 
God,  will  have  no  difficulty  in  supposing  that  it  con- 
tains no  specific  prohibition  of  war.  Accordingly,  if  wre 
be  asked  for  such  a  prohibition,  in  the  manner  in  which 
Thou  shall  ?iot  kill  is  directed  to  murder,  we  willingly 
answer  that  no  such  prohibition  exists  ; — and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  the  argument.  Even  those  who  would  re- 
quire such  a  prohibition,  are  themselves  satisfied  re- 
specting the  obligation  of  many  negative  duties  on 
which  there  has  been  no  specific  decision  in  the  New 
Testament.  They  believe  that  suicide  is  not  lawful : 
yet  Christianity  never  forbade  it.  It  can  be  shown, 
indeed,  by  implication  and  inference,  that  suicide 
could  not  have  been  allowed,  and  with  this  they  are 
satisfied.     Yet   there   is,    probably,    in   the   Christian 

*  Life  of  Bishop  Watson.  |  Id. 

%  Southey's  History  of  Brazil. 

\  Essays — The  Paterines  or  Gazari  of  Italy  in  the  nth,  12th, 
and  13th  centuries  "  held  that  it  was  not  lawful  to  bear  arms  or 
to  kill  mankind." 


CHAP.   X.]  ^AWfUI^NESS  OF  WAR.  425 

scriptures,  not  a  twentieth  part  of  as  much  indirect 
evidence  against  the  lawfulness  of  suicide  as  there  is 
against  the  lawfulness  of  war.  To  those  who  require 
such  a  command  as  Thou  shalt  not  engage  in  war,  it  is 
therefore  sufficient  to  reply,  that  they  require  that, 
which,  upon  this  and  upon  many  other  subjects, 
Christianity  has  not  seen  fit  to  give. 

We  have  had  many  occasions  to  illustrate,  in  the 
course  of  these  disquisitions,  the  characteristic  nature 
of  the  moral  law  as  a  law  of  benevolence.  This  benevo- 
lence, this  good -will  and  kind  affections  towards  one 
another,  is  placed  at  the  basis  of  practical  morality — 
it  is  "  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  " — it  is  the  test  of  the 
validity  of  our  pretensions  to  the  Christian  character. 
We  have  had  occasion,  too,  to  observe,  that  this  law  of 
benevolence  is  universally  applicable  to  public  affairs 
as  well  as  to  private,  to  the  intercourse  of  nations  as 
well  as  of  men.  Let  us  refer,  then,  to  some  of  those 
requisitions  of  this  law  which  appear  peculiarly  to  re- 
spect the  question  of  the  moral  character  of  war. 

Have  peace  one  with  another. — By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples ~,  if  ye  have  love  one  to 
another. 

Walk  with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  long-suf- 
fering, forbearing  one  another  in  love. 

Be  ye  all  of  one  mind,  having  compassion  one  oj 
a7iother ;  love  as  brethren,  be  pitiful,  be  courteous  :  not 
rendering  evil  for  evil,  or  railifig  for  railing. 

Be  at  peace  among  yourselves.  See  that  none  re?ider 
evil  for  evil  unto  any  ma?i. — God  hath  called  us  to  peace. 

Follow  after  love,  patience,  meekness. — Be  gentle, 
showing  all  meekness  unto  all  men. — Live  in  peace. 

Lay  aside  all  malice. — Put  off  anger,  wrath,  ?nalice. 
— Let  all  bitterness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamor, 
and  evil  speaking,  be  put  away  from  you,  with  all  ma- 
lice. 


426  I^AWFUENESS   OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

Avenge  ?iot  yourselves. — If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed 
him:  if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink. — Recompense  to  no 
man  evil  for  evil. — Overcome  evil  with  good. 

Now  we  ask  of  any  man  who  looks  over  these  pas- 
sages, What  evidence  do  they  convey  respecting  the 
lawfulness  of  war  ?  Could  any  approval  or  allowance  of 
it  have  been  subjoined  to  these  instructions,  without 
obvious  and  most  gross  inconsistency  ? — But  if  war  is 
obviously  and  most  grossly  inconsistent  with  the  gen- 
eral character  of  Christianity  ;  if  war  could  not  have 
been  permitted  by  its  teachers,  without  an  egregious 
violation  of  their  own  precepts,  we  think  that  the  evi- 
dence of  its  unlawfulness,  arising  from  this  general 
character  alone,  is  as  clear,  as  absolute,  and  as  exclu- 
sive, as  could  have  been  contained  in  any  form  of  pro- 
hibition whatever. 

But  it  is  not  from  general  principles  alone  that  the 
law  of  Christianity  respecting  war  may  be  deduced. — 
Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  "  An  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  :  but  /say  unto  you,  that 
ye  resist  not  evil :  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee 
on  thy  right  check,  turn  to  him  the  other  also. — Ye 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor,  and  hate  thine  enemy  :  but  /say  unto 
you,  L,o ve  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do 
good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which 
despitefully  use  you,  and  persecute  you  ;  for  if  ye  love 
them  which  love  you,  what  reward  have  ye?"* 

Of  the  precepts  from  the  Mount  the  most  obvious 
characteristic  is  greater  moral  excellence  and  superior 
purity.  They  are  directed,  not  so  immediately  to  the 
external  regulation  of  the  conduct,  as  to  the  restraint 
and  purification  of  the  affections.  In  another  precept 
it  is  not  enough  that  an  unlawful  passion  be  just  so  far 
restrained  as  to  produce  no  open  immorality — the  pas- 
*  Mat.  v.  38,  &c. 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  427 

sion  itself  is  forbidden.  The  tendency  of  the  discourse 
is  to  attach  guilt  not  to  action  only  but  also  to  thought. 
It  has  been  said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill ;  and  whosoever 
shall  kill  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment  :  but  / 
say  unto  you,  that  whosoever  is  angry  with  his 
brother,  without  a  cause,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
judgment."*  Our  Lawgiver  attaches  guilt  to  some 
of  the  violent  feelings,  such  as  resentment,  hatred, 
revenge  ;  and  by  doing  this,  we  contend  that  he  at- 
taches guilt  to  war.  War  cannot  be  carried  on  without 
those  passions  which  he  prohibits.  Our  argument, 
therefore,  is  syllogistical : — War  cannot  be  allowed,  if 
that  which  is  necessary  to  war  is  prohibited.  This, 
indeed,  is  precisely  the  argument  of  Erasmus: — "  They 
who  defend  war  must  defend  the  dispositions  which  lead 
to  war  ;  and  these  dispositions  are  absolutely  forbidden." 

Whatever  might  have  been  allowed  under  the  Mosaic 
institution  as  to  retaliation  or  resentment,  Christianity 
says,  "If  ye  love  them  only  which  love  you,  what 
reward  have  ye? — L,ove  your  enemies."  Now  what 
sort  of  love  does  that  man  bear  towards  his  enemy,  who 
runs  him  through  with  a  bayonet  ?  We  repeat,  that  the 
distinguishing  duties  of  Christianity  must  be  sacrified 
when  war  is  carried  on.  The  question  is  between  the 
abandonment  of  these  duties  and  the  abandonment  of 
war,  for  both  cannot  be  retained. f 

It   is    however    objected,    that     the      prohibitions, 

*  Mat.  v.  2if  22. 

f  Yet  the  retention  of  both  has  been,  unhappily  enough,  at- 
tempted. In  a  late  publication,  of  which  a  part  is  devoted  to 
the  defence  of  war,  the  author  gravely  recommends  soldiers, 
whilst  shooting  and  stabbing  their  enemies,  to  maintain  towards 
them  a  feeling  of  good-will  !" — Tracts  and  Essays  by  the  late 
William  Hey,  Esq.,  F.  R.  S.  And  Gisborne,  in  his  Duties  of 
Men,  holds  similar  language.  He  advises  the  soldier  "  never  to 
forget  the  comman  ties  of  human  nature  by  which  he  is  insepa- 
rably united  to  his  enemy." 


428  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

"Resist  not  eviL,"  &c,  are  figurative  ;  and  that  they  do 
not  mean  that  no  injury  is  to  be  punished,  and  no  out- 
rage to  be  repelled.  It  has  been  asked  with  compla- 
cent exultation,  What  would  these  advocates  of  peace 
say  to  him  who  struck  them  on  the  right  cheek  ? 
Would  they  turn  to  him  the  other  ?  What  would  these 
patient  moralists  say  to  him  who  robbed  them  of  a 
coat  ?  Would  they  give  a  cloak  also  ?  What  wrould 
these  philanthropists  say  to  him  who  asked  them  to 
lend  a  hundred  pounds  ?  Would  they  not  turn  away  ? 
This  is  argiimentum  ad  hominem;  one  example 
amongst  the  many,  of  that  low  and  dishonest  mode  of 
intellectual  warfare,  which  consists  in  exciting  the  feel- 
ings instead  of  convincing  the  understanding.  It  is 
however,  some  satisfaction,  that  the  motive  to  the  adop- 
tion of  this  mode  of  warfare  is  itself  an  indication  of  a 
bad  cause ;  for  what  honest  reasoner  would  produce 
only  a  laugh,  if  he  were  able  to  produce  conviction  ? 

We  willingly  grant  that  not  all  the  precepts  from 
the  Mount  were  designed  to  be  literally  obeyed  in  the 
intercourse  of  life.  But  what  then  !  To  show  that 
their  meaning  is  not  literal,  is  not  to  show  that  they 
do  not  forbid  war.  We  ask  in  our  turn,  What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  precepts  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of 
' '  Resist  not  evil  ?' '  Does  it  mean  to  allow  bombard- 
ment— devastation — slaughter  ?  If  it  does  not  mean  to 
allow  all  this,  it  does  not  mean  to  allow  war.  What, 
again,  do  the  objectors  say  is  the  meaning  of,  "Love 
your  enemies, "  or  of,  "  Do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you?"  Does  it  mean,  "  ruin  their  commerce  " — "  sink 
their  fleets" — "plunder  their  cities"  —  "shoot 
through  their  hearts  ?' '  If  the  precept  does  not  mean 
to  allow  all  this,  it  does  not  mean  to  allow  war.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  at  all  necessary  here  to  discuss  the  pre- 
cise signification  of  some  of  the  precepts  from  the 
Mount,  or  to  define  what  limits  Christianity  may  admit 


CHAP.    X.]  tAWFUtNESS   OF  WAR.  429 

in  their  application,  since  whatever  exceptions  she  may 
allow,  it  is  manifest  what  she  does  not  allow  :*  for  if 
we  give  to  our  objectors  whatever  license  of  interpre- 
tation they  may  desire,  they  cannot,  without  virtually 
rejecting  the  precepts,  so  interpret  them  as  to  make 
them  allow  war. 

Of  the  injunctions  that  are  contrasted  with,  "  eye  for 
eye,  and  tooth  for  tooth,"  the  entire  scope  and  purpose 
is  the  suppression  of  the  violent  passions,  and  the  in- 
culcation of  forbearance  and  forgiveness,  and  benevo- 
lence and  love.  They  forbid  not  specifically,  the  act, 
but  the  spirit  of  war  ;  and  this  method  of  prohibition 
Christ  ordinarily  employed.  He  did  not  often  con- 
demn the  individual  doctrines  or  customs  of  the  age, 
however  false  or  however  vicious  ;  but  he  condemned 
the  passions  by  which  only  vice  could  exist,  and  incul- 
cated the  truth  which  dismissed  every  error.  And  this 
method  was  undoubtedly  wise.  In  the  gradual  altera- 
tions of  human  wickedness,  many  new  species  of  profli- 
gacy might  arise  which  the  world  had  not  yet  practised  : 
in  the  gradual  vicissitudes  of  human  error,  many  new 
fallacies  might  obtain  which  the  wTorld  had  not  yet 
held  :  and  how  were  these  errors  and  these  crimes  to 
be  opposed,  but  by  the  inculcation  of  principles  that 
were  applicable  to  every  crime  and  to  every  error  ?  — 
principles  which  define  not  always  what  is  wrong,  but 
which  tell  us  what  always  is  right. 

There  are  two  modes  of  censure  or  condemnation; 
the  one  is  to  reprobate  evil,  and  the  other  to  enforce 

*  It  is  manifest,  from  the  New  Testament,  that  we  are  not  re- 
quired to  give  a  "  cloak,"  in  every  case,  to  him  who  robs  us  of 
1 '  a  coat  ;"  but  I  think  it  is  equally  manifest  that  we  are  required 
to  give  it  not  the  less,  because  he  has  robbed  us  :  the  circum- 
stance of  his  having  robbed  us,  does  not  entail  an  obligation  to 
give  ;  but  it  also  does  not  impart  a  permission  to  withhold.  If 
the  necessities  of  the  plunderer  require  relief,  it  is  the  business 
of  the  plundered  to  relieve  them. 


430  I,AWtfUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  [  ESSAY   III. 

the  opposite  good  ;  and  both  those  modes  were  adopted 
by  Christ. — He  not  only  censured  the  passions  that  are 
necessary  to  war,  but  inculcated  the  affections  which 
are  most  opposed  to  them.  The  conduct  and  disposi- 
tions upon  which  he  pronounced  his  solemn  benediction 
are  exceedingly  remarkable.  They  are  these,  and  in 
this  order  :  Poverty  of  spirit  ; — mourning  ; — meekness  ; 
— desire  of  righteousness  ; — mercy  ; — purity  of  heart ; 
— peacemaking  ; — sufferance  of  persecution.  Now  let 
the  reader  try  whether  he  can  propose  eight  other 
qualities,  to  be  retained  as  the  general  habit  of  the  mind 
which  shall  be  more  incongruous  with  war. 

Of  these  benedictions,  I  think  the  most  emphatical 
is  that  pronounced  upon  the  peacemakers.  "  Blessed 
are  the  peacemakers  :  for  they  shall  be  called  the 
children  of  God."*  Higher  praise  or  a  higher  title,  no 
man  can  receive.  Now,  I  do  not  say  that  these  bene- 
dictions contain  an  absolute  proof  that  Christ  prohibited 
war,  but  I  say  they  make  it  clear  that  he  did  not  ap- 
prove it.  He  selected  a  number  of  subjects  for  his 
solemn  approbation  ;  and  not  one  of  them  possesses  any 
congruity  with  war,  and  some  of  them  cannot  possibly 
exist  in  conjunction  with  it.  Can  any  one  believe  that 
he  who  made  this  selection,  and  who  distinguished  the 
peacemakers  with  peculiar  approbation,  could  have 
sanctioned  his  followers  in  destroying  one  another  ?  Or 
does  any  one  believe  that  those  who  were  mourners, 
and  meek  and  merciful  and  peacemaking,  could  at  the 
same  time  perpetrate  such  destruction  ?  If  I  be  told 
that  a  temporary  suspension  of  Christian  dispositions, 
although  necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  war,  does  not 
imply  the  extinction  of  Christian  principles  ;  or  that 
these  dispositions  may  be  the  general  habit  of  the 
mind,  and  may  both  precede  and  follow  the  acts  of 
war,  I  answer  that  this  is  to  grant  all  that  I  require, 

*  Matt.  v.  9. 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  43I 

since  it  grants  that,  when  we  engage  in  war,  we 
abandon  Christianity. 

When  the  betrayers  and  murderers  of  Jesus  Christ 
approached  him,  his  followers  asked,  "  Shall  we  smite 
with  the  sword?"  and  without  waiting  for  an  answer, 
one  of  them  "  drew  his  sword,  and  smote  the  servant 
of  the  high  priest,  and  cut  off  his  right  ear." — "  Put 
up  again  thy  sword  into  his  place,"  said  his  Divine 
Master  ;  "for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish 
with  the  sword."*  There  is  the  greater  importance  in 
the  circumstances  of  this  command,  because  it  prohib- 
ited the  destruction  of  human  life  in  a  cause  in  which 
there  were  the  best  of  possible  reasons  for  destroying 
it.  The  question,  "shall  we  smite  with  the  sword," 
obviously  refers  to  the  defence  of  the  Redeemer  from 
his  assailants,  by  force  of  arms.  His  followers  wTere 
ready  to  fight  for  him  ;  and  if  any  reason  for  fighting 
could  be  a  good  one,  they  certainly  had  it.  But  if,  in 
defence  of  Himself  from  the  hands  of  bloody  ruffians, 
his  religion  did  not  allow  the  sword  to  be  drawn,  for 
what  reason  can  it  be  lawful  to  draw  it  ?  The  advocates 
of  war  are  at  least  bound  to  show  a  better  reason  for 
destroying  mankind,  than  is  contained  in  this  instance 
in  which  it  was  forbidden. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said,  that  the  reason  why  Christ 
did  not  suffer  himself  to  be  defended  by  arms,  was, 
that  such  a  defence  would  have  defeated  the  purpose 
for  which  he  came  into  the  world,  namely,  to  offer  up 
his  life  ;  and  that  he  himself  assigns  this  reason  in  the 
context. — He  does  indeed  assign  it ;  but  the  primary 
reason,  the  immediate  context  is, — "for  all  they  that 
take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."  The 
reference  to  the  destined  sacrifice  of  his  life  is  an  after 
reference.  This  destined  sacrifice  might,  perhaps, 
have  formed  a  reason  why  his  followers  should  not 

*  Matt.  xxvi.  52. 


432  1,AWFUI,NKSS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

fight  then,  but  the  first,  the  principal  reason  which  he 
assigned,  was  the  reason  why  they  should  not  fight  at 
all. — Nor  is  it  necessary  to  define  the  precise  import  of 
the  words,  ' '  for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall 
perish  with  the  sword  ;  "  since  it  is  sufficient  for  us  all, 
that  they  imply  reprobation. 

It  is  with  the  apostles  as  with  Christ  himself.  The 
incessant  object  of  their  discourses  and  writings  is  the 
inculcation  of  peace,  of  mildness,  of  placability.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  they  continually  retained  in 
prospect  the  reward  which  would  attach  to  ' '  peace- 
makers. ' '  We  ask  the  advocate  of  war,  whether  he 
discovers  in  the  writings  of  the  apostles  or  of  the 
evangelists,  any  thing  that  indicates  they  approved  of 
war.  Do  the  tenor  and  spirit  of  their  writings  bear 
any  congruity  with  it  ?  Are  not  their  spirit  and  tenor 
entirely  discordant  with  it  ?  We  are  entitled  to  renew 
the  observation,  that  the  pacific  nature  of  the  apostolic 
writings,  proves,  presumptively,  that  the  writers  dis- 
allowed war.  That  could  not  be  allowed  by  them  as 
sanctioned  by  Christianity,  which  outraged  all  the 
principles  that  they  inculcated. 

' '  Whence  come  wars  and  fightings  among  you  ?  "  is 
the  interrogation  of  one  of  the  apostles,  to  some  whom 
he  was  reproving  for  their  unchristian  conduct  :  and  he 
answers  himself  by  asking  them,  "  Come  they  not 
hence,  even  of  your  lusts  that  war  in  your  members  ?  "* 
This  accords  precisely  with  the  argument  that  we 
urge.  Christ  forbade  the  passions  which  lead  to  war  ; 
and  now,  when  these  passions  had  broken  out  into 
actual  fighting,  his  apostle,  in  condemning  war,  refers 
it  back  to  their  passions.  We  have  been  saying  that 
the  passions  are  condemned,  and  therefore  war  ;  and  now, 
again,  the  apostle  James  thinks,  like  his  master,  that 

*  James  iv.  I. 


CHAP.   X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  433 

the  most  effectual  way  of  eradicating  war,  is  to  eradi- 
cate the  passions  which  produce  it. 

In  the  following  quotation  we  are  told,  not  only 
what  the  arms  of  the  apostles  wrere  not,  but  what  they 
were.  "  The  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal 
but  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down  of  strong- 
holds ;  and  bringing  into  captivity  every  thought  to  the 
obedience  of  Christ."*  I  quote  this,  not  only  because 
it  assures  us  that  the  apostles  had  nothing  to  do  with 
military  weapons,  but  because  it  tells  us  the  object  of 
their  warfare — the  bringing  every  thought  to  the  obe- 
dience of  Christ ;  and  this  object  I  would  beg  the 
reader  to  notice,  because  it  accords  with  the  object  of 
Christ  himself  in  his  precepts  from  the  Mount — the 
reduction  of  the  thoughts  to  obedience.  The  apostle 
doubtless  knew,  that,  if  he  could  effect  this,  there  was 
little  reason  to  fear  that  his  converts  wrould  slaughter 
one  another.  He  followed  the  example  of  his  master. 
He  attacked  wickedness  in  its  root ;  and  inculcated 
those  general  principles  of  purity  and  forbearance, 
which,  in  their  prevalence,  wTould  abolish  war,  as  they 
would  abolish  all  other  crimes.  The  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity -addressed  themselves  not  to  communities  but  to 
men.  They  enforced  the  regulation  of  the  passions 
and  the  rectification  of  the  heart,  and  it  was  probably 
clear  to  the  perceptions  of  apostles,  although  it  is  not 
clear  to  some  species  of  philosophy,  that  whatever 
duties  were  binding  upon  one  man,  were  binding  upon 
ten,  upon  a  hundred,  and  upon  the  state. 

War  is  not  often  directly  noticed  in  the  writings  of 
the  apostles.  When  it  is  noticed,  it  is  condemned,  just 
in  that  way  in  which  we  should  suppose  any  thing 
would  be  condemned  that  was  notoriously  opposed  to 
the  whole  system — just  as  murder  is  condemned  at  the 
present  day.     Who  can  find,  in  modern  books,  that 

*  2  Cor.  x.  4. 


434  LAWFULNESS  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

murder  is  formally  censured  ?  We  may  find  censures 
of  its  motives,  of  its  circumstances,  of  its  degrees  of 
atrocity  ;  but  the  act  itself  no  one  thinks  of  censuring, 
because  every  one  knows  that  it  is  wicked.  Setting 
statutes  aside,  I  doubt  whether,  if  an  Otaheitan  should 
choose  to  argue  that  Christians  allow  murder  because 
he  cannot  find  it  formally  prohibited  in  their  writings, 
we  should  not  be  at  a  loss  to  find  direct  evidence  against 
him.  And  it  arises,  perhaps,  from  the  same  causes,  that 
a  formal  prohibition  of  war  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  apostles.  I  do  not  believe  they  imagincdW\2X 
Christianity  would  ever  be  charged  with  allowing  it. 
They  write,  as  if  the  idea  of  such  a  charge  never  occurred 
to  them.  They  did,  nevertheless,  virtually  forbid  it ; 
unless  any  one  shall  say  that  they  disallowed  the  pas- 
sions which  occasion  war,  but  did  not  allow  war  itself  : 
that  Christianity  prohibits  the  cause  but  permits  the 
effect ;  which  is  much  the  same  as  to  say,  that  a  law 
which  forbade  the  administering  arsenic  did  not  forbid 
poisoning. 

But  although  the  general  tenor  of  Christianity  and 
some  of  its  particular  precepts  appear  distinctly  to  con- 
demn and  disallow  war,  it  is  certain  that  different  con- 
clusions have  been  formed ;  and  many,  who  are  un- 
doubtedly desirous  of  performing  the  duties  of  Chris- 
tianity, have  failed  to  perceive  that  war  is  unlawful  to 
them. 

In  examining  the  arguments  by  which  war  is  de- 
fended, two  important  considerations  should  be  borne 
in  mind — first,  that  those  who  urge  them  are  not 
simply  defending  war,  they  are  also  defending  them- 
selves. If  war  be  wrong,  their  conduct  is  wrong  ;  and 
the  desire  of  self -justification  prompts  them  to  give  im- 
portance to  whatever  arguments  they  can  advance  in 
its  favor.  Their  decisions  may,  therefore,  with  reason, 
be  regarded  as  in  some  degree  the  decisions  of  a  party 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  435 

in  the  cause.  The  other  consideration  is,  that  the  de- 
fenders of  war  come  to  the  discussion  prepossessed  in 
its  favor.  They  are  -attached  to  -it  by  their  earliest 
habits.  They  do  not  examine  the  question  as  a 
philosopher  would  examine  it,  to  whom  the  subject 
was  new.  Their  opinions  had  been  already  formed. 
They  are  discussing  a  question  which  they  had  already 
determined  :  and  every  man,  who  is  acquainted  with 
the  effects  of  evidence  on  the  mind,  knows  that  under 
these  circumstances  a  very  slender  argument  in  favor 
of  the  previous  opinions,  possesses  more  influence  than 
many  great  ones  against  it.  Now  all  this  cannot  be 
predicated  of  the  advocates  of  peace,  they  are  opposing 
the  influence  of  habit ;  they  are  contending  against  the 
general  prejudice  ;  they  are,  perhaps,  dismissing  their 
own  previous  opinions  :  and  I  would  submit  it  to  the 
candor  of  the  reader,  that  these  circumstances  ought  to 
attach,  in  his  mind,  suspicion  to  the  validity  of  the 
arguments  against  us. 

The  narrative  of  the  centurion  who  came  to  Jesus  at 
Capernaum  to  solicit  him  to  heal  his  servant,  furnishes 
one  of  these  arguments.  It  is  said  that  Christ  found 
no  fault  with  the  centurion's  profession  ;  that  if  he  had 
disallowed  the  military  character,  he  would  have  taken 
this  opportunity  of  censuring  it ;  and  that,  instead  of 
such  censure  he  highly  commended  the  officer,  and  said 
of  him,  "I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in 
Israel."* 

An  obvious  weakness  in  this  argument  is  this  ;  that 
it  is  founded  not  upon  an  approval,  but  upon  silence. 
Approbation  is  indeed  expressed,  but  it  is  directed,  not 
to  his  arms,  but  to  his  "  faith  ;  "  and  those  who  will 
read  the  narrative,  will  find  that  no  occasion  was  given 
for  noticing  his  profession.  He  came  to  Christ,  not  as 
a   military  officer,  but  simply  as  a  deserving  man.     A 

*  Matt.  viiL  10. 


436  LAWFULNESS   OF  WAR.  [FSSAY   III. 

censure  of  his  profession  might  undoubtedly  have  been 
pronounced,  but  it  would  have  been  a  gratuitous  cen- 
sure, a  censure  that  did  not  naturally  arise  out  of  the 
case.  The  objection  is,  in  its  greatest  weight,  pre- 
sumptive only  ;  for  none  can  be  supposed  to  counte- 
nance every  thing  that  he  does  not  condemn .  To  observe 
silence  *  in  such  cases,  was  indeed  the  ordinary  practice 
of  Christ.  He  very  seldom  interfered  with  the  civil  or 
political  institutions  of  the  world.  In  these  institutions 
there  was  sufficient  wickedness  around  him  ;  but  some 
of  them  flagitious  as  they  were,  he  never,  on  any  oc- 
casion, even  noticed.  His  mode  of  condemning  and 
extirpating  political  vices,  was,  by  the  inculcation  of 
general  rules  of  purity,  which,  in  their  eventual  and  uni- 
versal application,  would  reform  them  all. 

But  how  happens  it  that  Christ  did  not  notice  the 
centurion's  religioyi  ?  He  surely  was  an  idolater. 
And  is  there  not  as  good  reason  for  maintaining  that 
Christ  approved  idolatry  because  he  did  not  condemn 
it,  as  that  he  approved  war  because  he  did  not  con- 
demn it?  Reasoning  from  analogy,  we  should  con- 
clude that  idolatry  was  likely  to  have  been  noticed 
rather  than  war ;  and  it  is  therefore  peculiarly  and 
singularly  unapt  to  bring  forward  the  silence  respecting 
war,  as  an  evidence  of  its  lawfulness. 

A  similar  argument  is  advanced  from  the  case  of 
Cornelius,  to  whom  Peter  was  sent  from  Joppa,  of 
which  it  is  said,  that  although  the  gospel  was  imparted 
to  Cornelius  by  the  especial  direction  of  heaven,  yet  we 
do  not  find  that  he  therefore  quitted  his  profession,  or 

*  "Christianity,  soliciting  admission  into  all  nations  of  the 
world,  abstained,  as  behoved  it,  from  intermeddling  with  the 
civil  institutions  of  any.  But  does  it  follow,  from  the  silence  of 
Scripture  concerning  them,  that  all  the  civil  institutions  which 
then  prevailed  were  right,  or  that  the  bad  should  not  be  ex- 
changed for  better  ?  " — Paley. 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  437 

that  it  was  considered  inconsistent  with  his  new  char- 
acter. The  objection  applies  to  this  argument  as  to 
the  last — that  it  is  built  upon  silence,  that  it  is  simply 
negative.  We  do  not  find  that  he  quitted  the  service  : 
I  might  answer,  neither  do  we  find  that  he  continued 
in  it.  We  only  know  nothing  of  the  matter  ;  and 
the  evidence  is  therefore  so  much  less  than  proof, 
as  silence  is  less  than  approbation.  Yet  that  the 
account  is  silent  respecting  any  disapprobation  of 
war,  might  have  been  a  reasonable  ground  of 
argument  under  different  circumstances.  It  might 
have  been  a  reasonable  ground  of  argument,  if 
the  primary  object  of  Christianity  had  been  the  re- 
formation of  political  institutions,  or,  perhaps,  even  if 
her  primary  object  had  been  the  regulation  of  the  ex- 
ternal conduct ;  but  her  primary  object  was  neither  of 
these.  She  directed  herself  to  the  reformation  of  the 
heart,  knowing  that  all  other  reformation  would  follow. 
She  embraced,  indeed,  both  morality  and  policy,  and 
has  reformed,  or  will  reform,  both — not  so  much  im- 
mediately as  consequently — not  so  much  by  filtering 
the  current,  as  by  purifying  the  spring.  The  silence 
of  Peter,  therefore,  in  the  case  of  Cornelius,  will  serve 
the  cause  of  war  but  little  :  that  little  is  diminished 
when  urged  against  the  positive  evidence  of  commands 
and  prohibitions,  and  it  is  reduced  to  nothingness  when 
it  is  opposed  to  the  universal  tendency  and  object  of  the 
revelation. 

It  has  sometimes  been  urged  that  Christ  paid  taxes 
to  the  Roman  government  at  a  time  when  it  was  en- 
gaged in  war,  and  when,  therefore,  the  money  that  he 
paid  would  be  employed  in  its  prosecution.  This  we 
shall  readily  grant ;  but  it  appears  to  be  forgotten  by 
our  opponents,  that  if  this  proves  war  to  be  lawful, 
they  are  proving  too  much.  These  taxes  were  thrown 
into   the   exchequer  of   the  state,  and  a  part  of   the 


438  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY   III. 

money  was  applied  to  purposes  of  a  most  iniquitous 
and  shocking  nature — sometimes,  probably,  to  the 
gratification  of  the  emperor's  personal  vices,  and  to  his 
gladiatorial  exhibitions,  &c. ,  and  certainly  to  the  sup- 
port of  a  miserable  idolatry.  If,  therefore,  the  payment 
of  taxes  to  such  a  government  proves  an  approbation  of 
war,  it  proves  an  approbation  of  many  other  enormities. 
Moreover,  the  argument  goes  too  far  in  relation  even  to 
war  ;  for  it  must  necessarily  make  Christ  approve  of  all 
the  Roman  wars,  without  distinction  of  their  justice  or 
injustice — of  the  most  ambitious,  the  most  atrocious,  and 
the  most  aggressive — and  these,  even  our  objectors  will 
not  defend.  The  payment  of  tribute  by  our  Lord,  was 
accordant  with  his  usual  system  of  avoiding  to  inter- 
fere in  the  civil  or  political  institutions  of  the  world. 

1  ■  He  that  hath  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  garment 
and  buy  one. ' '  *  This  is  another  passage  that  is  brought 
against  us.  ' '  For  what  purpose, "  it  is  asked,  '  'were  they 
to  buy  swords,  if  swords  might  not  be  used  ?"  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  with  some  of  those  who  advance 
this  objection,  it  is  not  an  objection  of  words  rather 
than  of  opinion.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  they 
themselves  think  there  is  any  weight  in  it.  To  those, 
however,  who  may  be  influenced  by  it,  I  would  observe 

*  Luke  xxii.  36.  Upon  the  interpretation  of  this  passage  of 
Scripture,  I  would  subjoin  the  sentiments  of  two  or  three 
authors.  Bishop  Pearce  says,  "  It  is  plain  that  Jesus  never  in- 
tended to  make  any  resistance,  or  suffer  a  sword  to  be  used  on 
this  occasion. ' '  And  Campbell  says,  ' '  We  are  sure  that  he  did 
not  intend  to  be  understood  literally,  but  as  speaking  of  the 
weapons  of  their  spiritual  warfare. ' '  And  Beza  :  ' !  This  whole 
speech  is  allegorical.  My  fellow  soldiers,  you  have  hitherto 
lived  in  peace,  but  now  a  dreadful  war  is  at  hand  ;  so  that  omit- 
ting all  other  things,  you  must  think  only  of  arms.  But  when 
he  prayed  in  the  garden,  and  reproved  Peter  for  smiting  with 
the  sword,  he  himself  showed  what  these  arms  were." — See  Peace 
and  War,  an  essay.     Hatchard,  1824. 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  439 

that,  as  it  appears  to  me,  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  objec- 
tion may  be  found  in  the  immediate  context :  ' '  Lord, 
behold  here  are  two  swords,"  said  they,  and  he  immedi- 
ately answered,  "It  is  enough."  How  could  two  be 
enough  when  eleven  were  to  be  supplied  with  them  ? 
That  swords  in  the  sense,  and  for  the  purpose,  of  mili- 
tary weapons,  were  even  intended  in  this  passage, 
there  appears  much  reason  for  doubting.  This  reason 
will  be  discovered  by  examining  and  connecting  such 
expressions  as  these  :  ' '  The  Son  of  Man  is  not  come 
to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them,"  said  our 
Lord.  Yet,  on  another  occasion,  he  says,  "  I  came  not 
to  send  peace  on  earth,  but  a  sword."  How  are  we  to 
explain  the  meaning  of  the  latter  declaration?  Ob- 
viously, by  understanding  "sword"  to  mean  some- 
thing far  other  than  steel.  There  appears  little  reason 
for  supposing  that  physical  weapons  were  intended  in 
the  instruction  of  Christ.  I  believe  they  were  not  in- 
tended, partly  because  no  one  can  imagine  his  apostles 
were  in  the  habit  of  using  such  arms,  partly  because 
they  declared  that  the  weapons  of  their  warfare  were 
not  carnal,  and  partly  because  the  word  ' '  sword ' '  is 
often  usen  to  imply  "dissension,"  or  the  religious 
warfare  of  the  Christian.  Such  an  use  of  language  is 
found  in  the  last  quotation  ;  and  it  is  found  also  in 
such  expressions  as  these  :  ' '  shield  of  faith , " — "  helmet 
of  salvation, " — "  sword oi  the  spirit, " — "  I  have:  fought 
the  good  'fight  of  faith." 

But  it  will  be  said  that  the  apostles  did  provide  them- 
selves with  swords,  for  that  on  the  same  evening  they 
asked,  "Shall  we  smite  with  the  sword?"  This  is 
true,  and  it  may  probably  be  true  also,  that  some  of 
them  provided  themselves  with  swords  in  consequence  of 
the  injunction  of  their  Master.  But  what  then?  It 
appears  to  me  that  the  apostles  acted  on  this  occasion 
upon  the  principles  on  which  they  had  wished  to  act  on 


440  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY   III. 

another,  when  they  asked,  "Wilt  thou  that  we  com- 
mand fire  to  come  down  from  heaven,  and  consume 
them?"  And  that  their  Master's  principles  of  action 
were  also  the  same  in  both — "Ye  know  not  what 
manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of  ;  for  the  Son  of  Man  is  not 
come  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them."  This 
is  the  language  of  Christianity  ;  and  I  would  seriously 
invite  him  who  now  justifies  M  destroying  men's  lives," 
to  consider  what  manner  of  spirit  he  is  of. 

I  think  then,  that  no  argument  arising  from  the  in- 
struction to  buy  swords  can  be  maintained.  This,  at 
least,  we  know,  that  when  the  apostles  were  completely 
commissioned,  they  neither  used  nor  possessed  them. 
An  extraordinary  imagination  he  must  have,  who  con- 
ceives of  an  apostle,  preaching  peace  and  reconciliation, 
crying  ''forgive  injuries," — "love  your  enemies," — 
"  render  not  evil  for  evil ;"  and  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  discourse,  if  he  chanced  to  meet  violence  or  insult, 
promptly  drawing  his  sword  and  maiming  or  murder- 
ing the  offender.  We  insist  upon  this  consideration. 
If  swords  were  to  be  worn,  swords  were  to  be  used  ; 
and  there  is  no  rational  way  in  which  they  could  have 
been  used,  but  some  such  as  that  which  we  have  been 
supposing.  If,  therefore,  the  words,  "He  that  hath 
no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  garment  and  buy  one,"  do 
not  mean  to  authorize  such  an  use  of  the  sword,  they  do 
not  mean  to  authorize  its  use  at  all  :  and  those  who 
adduce  the  passage,  must  allow  its  application  in  such 
a  sense,  or  they  must  exclude  it  from  any  application 
to  their  purpose. 

It  has  been  said  again,  that  when  soldiers  came  to 
John  the  Baptist  to  enquire  of  him  what  they  should 
do,  he  did  not  direct  them  to  leave  the  service,  but  to 
be  content  with  their  wages.  This,  also,  is  at  best  but 
a  negative  evidence.  It  does  not  prove  that  the  mili- 
tary profession  was  wrong,  and  it  certainly  does  not 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  441 

prove  that  it  was  right.  But  in  truth,  if  it  asserted  the 
latter,  Christians  have,  as  I  conceive,  nothing  to  do 
with  it :  for  I  think  that  we  need  not  enquire  what 
John  allowed,  or  what  he  forbade.  He,  confessedly, 
belonged  to  that  system  which  required  ' '  an  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth;"  and  the  observations 
which  we  shall  by  and  by  make  on  the  authority  of  the 
law  of  Moses,  apply,  therefore,  to  that  of  John  the 
Baptist.  Although  it  could  be  proved  (which  it 
cannot  be)  that  he  allowed  wars,  he  acted  not  incon- 
sistently with  his  own  dispensation  ;  and  with  that  dis- 
pensation we  have  no  business.  Yet,  if  any  one  still 
insists  upon  the  authority  of  John,  I  would  refer  him 
for  an  answer  to  Jesus  Christ  himself.  What  authority 
He  attached  to  John  on  questions  relating  to  His  own 
dispensation,  may  be  learnt  from  this — M  The  least  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he. ' ' 

It  is  perhaps  no  trifling  indication  of  the  difficulty 
which  writers  have  found  in  discovering  in  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures  arguments  in  support  of  war,  that  they 
have  had  recourse  to  such  equivocal  and  far-fetched 
arguments.  Grotius  adduces  a  passage  which  he  says 
is  "  a  leading  point  of  evidence,  to  show  that  the  right  of 
war  is  not  taken  away  by  the  law  of  the  gospel. ' '  And 
what  is  this  leading  evidence  ?  That  Paul,  in  writing 
to  Timothy,  exhorts  that  prayer  should  be  made  ' '  for 
kings!"* — Another  evidence  which  this  great  man 
adduces  is,  that  Paul  suffered  himself  to  be  protected 
on  his  journey  by  a  guard  of  soldiers,  without  hinting 
any  disapprobation  of  repelling  force  by  force.  But 
how  does  Grotius  know  that  Paul  did  not  hint  this  ? 
And  who  can  imagine  that  to  suffer  himself  to  be 
guarded  by  a  military  escort,  in  the  appointment  of 
which  he  had  no  control,  was  to  approve  war  ? 

But  perhaps  the  real  absence  of  sound  Christian 
*  See  Rights  of  War  and  Peace. 


442  I,AWFUI,NESS    OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

arguments  in  favor  of  war,  is  in  no  circumstance  so  re- 
markably intimated  as  in  the  citations  of  Milton  in  his 
Christian  Doctrine.  ' '  With  regard  to  the  duties  of 
war,"  he  quotes  or  refers  to  thirty-nine  passages  of 
Scripture — thirty-eight  of  which  are  from  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  :  and  what  is  the  individual  one  from  the 
Christian  ? — ' '  What  king  going  to  make  war  against 
another  king  !"  &c* 

Such  are  the  arguments  which  are  adduced  from  the 
Christian  Scriptures  by  the  advocates  of  war.  In  these 
five  passages,  the  principal  of  the  New  Testament  evi- 
dences in  its  favor,  unquestionably  consist  :  they  are 
the  passages  which  men  of  acute  minds,  studiously 
seeking  for  evidence,  have  selected.  And  what  are 
they  ?  Their  evidence  is  in  the  majority  of  instances 
negative  at  best.  A  ' '  not  ' '  intervenes.  The  cen- 
turion was  not  found  fault  with  :  Cornelius  was  not 
told  to  leave  the  profession  :  John  did  not  tell  the  sol- 
diers to  abandon  the  army  ;  Paul  did  not  refuse  a  mili- 
tary guard.  I  cannot  forbear  to  solicit  the  reader  to- 
compare  these  objections  with  the  pacific  evidence  of 
the  gospel  which  has  been  laid  before  him  ;  I  would 
rather  say,  to  compare  it  with  the  gospel  itself  ;  for  the 
sum,  the  tendency,  of  the  whole  revelation  is  in  our  favor. 

In  an  enquiry  whether  Christianity  allows  of  war, 
there  is  a  subject  that  always  appears  to  me  to  be  of 
peculiar  importance — the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment respecting  the  arrival  of  a  period  of  universal 
peace.  The  belief  is  perhaps  general  amongst  Chris- 
tians, that  a  time  will  come  when  vice  shall  be  eradi- 
cated from  the  world,  when  the  violent  passions  of 
mankind  shall  be  repressed,  and  when  the  pure 
benignity  of  Christianity  shall  be  universally  diffused. 
That  such  a  period  will  come  we  indeed  know  as- 
suredly, for  God  has  promised  it. 

*  Iyuke  xiv.  31. 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  443 

Of  the  many  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  re- 
specting this  period,  we  refer  only  to  a  few  from  the 
writings  of  Isaiah.  In  his  predictions  respecting  the 
"last  times,"  by  which  it  is  not  disputed  that  he  re- 
ferred to  the  prevalence  of  the  Christian  religion,  the 
prophet  says — "They  shall  beat  their  swords  into 
ploughshares,  and  their  spears  into  pruning  hooks  : 
nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation,  neither 
shall  they  learn  war  any  more."  *  Again,  referring  to 
the  same  period,  he  says — "They  shall  not  hurt  nor 
destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain  :  for  the  earth  shall  be 
full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover 
the  sea."f  And  again,  respecting  the  same  era — 
"  Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land,  wasting 
nor  destruction  within  thy  borders. ' '  J 

Two  things  are  to  be  observed  in  relation  to  these 
prophecies ;  ist,  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  war 
should  eventually  be  abolished.  This  consideration  is 
of  importance  ;  for  if  war  be  not  accordant  with  His 
will,  war  cannot  be  accordant  with  Christianity,  which 
is  the  revelation  of  His  will.  Our  business,  however, 
is  principally  with  the  second  consideration — that 
Christianity  will  be  the  means  of  introducing  this  period 
of  peace.  From  those  who  say  that  Qur  religion 
sanctions  war,  an  answer  must  be  expected  to  ques- 
tions such  as  these  : — By  what  instrumentality  and  by 
the  diffusion  of  what  principles,  will  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  be  fulfilled  ?  Are  we  to  expect  some  new  sys- 
tem of  religion,  by  which  the  imperfections  of  Chris- 
tianity shall  be  removed  and  its  deficiencies  supplied  ? 
Are  we  to  believe  that  God  sent  his  only  Son  into  the 
world  to  institute  a  religion  such  as  this,  a  religion 
that,  in  a  few  centuries,  would  require  to  be  altered  and 
amended  ?  If  Christianity  allows  of  war,  they  must 
tell  us  what  it  is  that  is  to  extirpate  war.  If  she 
*  Isa.  ii.  4.  |  Id.  xi.  9.  %  Id.  lx.  18. 


444  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

allows  "  violence,  and  wasting,  and  destruction,"  they 
must  tell  us  what  are  the  principles  that  are  to  pro- 
duce gentleness,  and  benevolence,  and  forbearance. — I 
know  not  what  answer  such  enquiries  will  receive  from 
the  advocate  of  war,  but  I  know  that  Isaiah  says  the 
change  will  be  effected  by  Christianity  :  and  if  any  one 
still  chooses  to  expect  another  and  a  purer  system,  an 
apostle  may  perhaps,  repress  his  hopes  ; — "  Though  we 
or  an  angel  from  heaven,"  says  Paul,  "preach  any 
other  gospel  unto  you,  than  that  which  we  have 
preached  unto  you,  let  him  be  accursed."  * 

Whatever  the  principles  of  Christianity  will  require 
hereafter,  they  require  now.  Christianity,  with  its 
present  principles  and  obligations,  is  to  produce  uni- 
versal peace.  It  becomes,  therefore,  an  absurdity,  a 
simple  contradiction,  to  maintain  that  the  principles  of 
Christianity  allow  of  war,  when  they,  and  they  only 
are  to  eradicate  it.  If  we  have  no  other  guarantee  of 
peace  than  the  existence  of  our  religion,  and  no  other 
hope  of  peace  than  in  its  diffusion,  how  can  that  relig- 
ion sanction  war  ? 

The  case  is  clear.  A  more  perfect  obedience  to  that 
same  gospel,  which,  we  are  told,  sanctions  slaughter, 
will  be  the  means,  and  the  only  means,  of  exterminat- 
ing slaughter  from  the  world.  It  is  not  from  an  altera- 
tion of  Christianity,  but  from  an  assimilation  of  Chris- 
tians to  its  nature  that  we  are  to  hope.  It  is  because 
we  violate  the  principles  of  our  religion,  because  we  are 
not  what  they  require  us  to  be,  that  wars  are  continued. 
If  we  will  not  be  peaceable,  let  us  then,  at  least,  be 
honest,  and  acknowledge  that  we  continue  to  slaughter 
one  another,  not  because  Christianity  permits  it,  but 
because  we  reject  her  laws. 

The  opinions  of  the  earliest  professors  of  Christianity 
upon  the  lawfulness  of  war  are  of  importance,  because 

*  Gal.  i,  8. 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NESS   OF 


they  who  lived  nearest  to  the  time  of  its  Founder  were 
the  most  likely  to  be  informed  of  his  intentions  and 
his  will,  and  to  practise  them  without  those  adultera- 
tions which  we  know  have  been  introduced  by  the  lapse 
of  ages. 

During  a  considerable  period  after  the  death  of 
Christ,  it  is  certain,  then,  that  his  followers  believed 
he  had  forbidden  war,  and  that,  in  consequence  of  this 
belief,  many  of  them  refused  to  engage  in  it  whatever 
were  the  consequence,  whether  reproach,  or  imprison- 
ment, or  death.  These  facts  are  indisputable.  "  It  is 
as  easy,"  says  a  learned  writer  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, "  to  obscure  the  sun  at  mid-day,  as  to  deny  that 
the  primitive  Christians  renounced  all  revenge  and 
war. ' '  Christ  and  his  apostles  delivered  general  pre- 
cepts for  the  regulation  of  our  conduct.  It  was  neces- 
sary for  their  successors  to  apply  them  to  their  practice 
in  life.  And  to  what  did  they  apply  the  pacific  pre- 
cepts which  had  been  delivered  ?  They  applied  them 
to  war  ;  they  were  assured  that  the  precepts  absolutely 
forbade  it.  This  belief  they  derived  from  those  very 
precepts  on  which  we  have  insisted  ;  they  referred  ex- 
pressly, to  the  same  passages  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  from  the  authority  and  obligation  of  those  passages, 
they  refuse  to  bear  arms.  A  few  examples  from  their 
history  will  show  with  what  undoubting  confidence 
they  believed  in  the  unlawfulness  of  war,  and  how 
much  they  were  willing  to  suffer  in  the  cause  of  peace. 

Maximilian,  as  it  is  related  in  the  Acts  of  Ruin  art, 
was  brought  before  the  tribunal  to  be  enrolled  as  a  sol- 
dier. On  the  proconsul's  asking  his  name,  Maximilian 
replied,  "lama  Christian  and  cannot  fight."  It  was, 
however,  ordered  that  he  should  be  enrolled,  but  he 
refused  to  serve,  still  alleging  that  he  was  a  Christian. 
He  was  immediately  told  that  there  was  no  alternative 
between  bearing  arms  and  being  put  to  death.     But  his 


446  tAWFUtNESS   OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

fidelity  was  not  to  be  shaken  : — >"  I  cannot  fight,"  said 
he,  "if  I  die."  He  continued  steadfast  to  his  princi- 
ples, and  was  consigned  to  the  executioner. 

The  primitive  Christians  not  only  refused  to  be  en- 
listed in  the  army,  but  when  they  embraced  Christian- 
ity, whilst  already  enlisted,  they  abandoned  the 
profession  at  whatever  cost.  Marcellus  was  a  centurion 
in  the  legion  called  Trajana.  Whilst  holding  this 
commission,  he  became  a  Christian  ;  and  believing  in 
common  with  his  fellow- Christians,  that  war  was  no 
longer  permitted  to  him,  he  threw  down  his  belt  at  the 
head  of  the  legion,  delaring  that  he  had  become  a 
Christian,  and  that  he  would  serve  no  longer.  He  was 
committed  to  prison  ;  but  he  was  still  faithful  to  Chris- 
tianity. "  It  is  not  lawful,"  said  he,  "  for  a  Christian 
to  bear  arms  for  any  earthly  consideration  ;"  and  he 
was,  in  consequence,  put  to  death.  Almost  immedi- 
ately afterwards,  Cassian,  who  was  notary  to  the  same 
legion,  gave  up  his  office.  He  steadfastly  maintained 
the  sentiments  of  Marcellus  ;  and,  like  him  was  con- 
signed to  the  executioner.  Martin,  of  whom  so  much 
is  vSaid  by  Sulpicius  Severus,  was  bred  to  the  profession 
of  arms,  which,  on  his  acceptance  of  Christianity,  he 
abandoned.  To  Julian  the  Apostate,  the  only  reason 
that  we  find  he  gave  for  his  conduct  was  this  : — "I  am 
a  Christian,  and  therefore  I  cannot  fight." 

These  were  not  the  sentiments,  and  this  was  not  the 
conduct,  of  insulated  individuals  who  might  be  actuated 
by  individual  opinion,  or  by  their  private  interpreta- 
tions of  the  duties  of  Christianity.  Their  principles 
were  the  principles  of  the  body.  They  were  recognized 
and  defended  by  the  Christian  writers,  their  contempo- 
raries. Justin  Martyr  and  Tatian  talk  of  soldiers  and 
Christians  as  distinct  characters  ;  and  Tatian  says  that 
the  Christians  declined  even  military  commands. 
Clemens  of  Alexandria  calls  his  Christian  contempora- 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  447 

ries  the  "  followers  of  peace,"  and  expressly  tells  us 
1 '  that  the  followers  of  peace  used  none  of  the  imple- 
ments of  war."  L,actantius,  another  early  Christian, 
says  expressly,  "  It  can  never  be  lawful  for  a  righteous 
man  to  go  to  war. ' '  About  the  end  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, Celsus,  one  of  the  opponents  of  Christianity, 
charged  the  Christians  with  refusing  to  bear  arms  even 
in  case  of  necessity .  Origen,  the  defender  of  the  Chris- 
tians, does  not  think  of  denying  the  fact ;  he  admits 
the  refusal,  and  justifies  it,  becatise  war  was  unlawful. 
Even  after  Christianity  had  spread  over  almost  the 
whole  of  the  known  world,  Tertullian,  in  speaking  of 
a  part  of  the  Roman  armies,  including  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  standing  legions  of  Rome,  distinctly  informs 
us  that  "  not  a  Christian  could  be  found  amongst 
them." 

All  this  is  explicit.  The  evidence  of  the  following 
facts  is,  however,  yet  more  determinate  and  satisfac- 
tory. Some  of  the  arguments  which,  at  the  present 
day,  are  brought  against  the  advocates  of  peace,  were 
then  urged  against  these  early  Christians  :  and  these 
arguments  they  examined  and  repelled.  This  indicates 
investigation  and  enquiry,  and  manifests  that  their  be- 
lief of  the  unlawfulness  of  war  was  not  a  vague  opin- 
ion, hastily  admitted  and  loosely  floating  amongst 
them,  but  that  it  was  the  result  of  deliberate  examina- 
tion, and  a  consequent  firm  conviction  that  Christ  had 
forbidden  it.  The  very  same  arguments  which  are 
brought  in  defence  of  war  at  the  present  day,  were 
brought  against  the  Christians  sixteen  hundred  years 
ago  ;  and  sixteen  hundred  years  ago,  they  were  repelled 
by  these  faithful  contenders  for  the  purity  of  our  relig- 
ion. It  is  remarkable  too,  that  Tertullian  appeals  to 
the  precepts  from  the  Mount,  in  proof  of  those  princi- 
ples on  which  this  chapter  has  been  insisting  : — that 
the  dispositions  which    the   precepts   i?iculcate   are   not 


448  t,AWFUI,NESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

compatible  with  war,  and  that  war,  therefore,  is  irreconcila- 
ble with  Christia?iity . 

If  it  be  possible,  a  still  stronger  evidence  of  the  prim- 
itive belief,  is  contained  in  the  circumstance,  that  some 
of  the  Christian  authors  declared  that  the  refusal  of  the 
Christians  to  bear  arms,  was  a  fulfilment  of  ancient 
prophecy.  The  peculiar  strength  of  this  evidence  con- 
sists in  this — that  the  fact  of  a  refusal  to  bear  arms  is 
assumed  as  notorious  and  unquestioned.  Irenseus,  who 
lived  about  the  year  180,  affirms  that  the  prophecy  of 
Isaiah,  which  declared  that  men  should  turn  their 
swords  into  plough-shares  and  their  spears  into  prun- 
ing hooks,  had  been  fulfilled  in  his  time ;  "  for  the 
Christians,"  says  he,  "  have  changed  their  swords  and 
their  lances  into  instruments  of  peace,  and  they  know 
not  how  to  fight." — Justin  Martyr,  his  contemporary, 
writes — "  That  the  prophecy  is  fulfilled  you  have  good 
reason  to  believe,  for  we,  who  in  times  past  killed  one 
another,  do  not  now  fight  with  our  enemies."  Tertul- 
lian,  who  lived  later,  says,  "  You  must  confess  that  the 
prophecy  has  been  accomplished,  as  far  as  the  practice 
of  every  i?idividual  is  co?icerned,  to  whom  it  is  applica- 
ble." 

It  has  been  sometimes  said,  that  the  motive  which 
influenced  the  early  Christians  to  refuse  to  engage  in 
war,  consisted  in  the  idolatry  which  was  connected 
with  the  Roman  armies. — One  motive  this  idolatry 
unquestionably  afforded ;  but  it  is  obvious,  from  the 
quotations  which  we -have  given,  that  their  belief  of 
the  unlawfulness  of  fighting,  independent  of  any  ques- 
tion of  idolatry,  was  an  insuperable  objection  to  engag- 
ing in  war.  Their  words  are  explicit :  "I  cannot 
fight,  if  I  die." — "  I  am  a  Christian,  and  therefore  I 
cannot  fight." — "Christ,"  says  Tertullian,  "  by  dis- 
arming Peter,  disarmed  every  soldier;"  and  Peter 
was  not  about  to  fight  in  the  armies  of  idolatry.     So 


CHAP.    X.J  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  449 

entire  was  their  conviction  of  the  incompatibility  of 
war  with  our  religion,  that  they  would  not  even  be 
present  at  the  gladiatorial  rights,  ''lest,"  says  Theo- 
philus,  "  we  should  become  partakers  of  the  murders 
committed  there."  Can  any  one  believe  that  they, 
who  would  not  even  witness  a  battle  between  two  men, 
would  themselves  fight  in  a  battle  between  armies? 
And  the  destruction  of  a  gladiator,  it  should  be  re- 
membered, was  authorized  by  the  state,  as  much  as 
the  destruction  of  enemies  in  war. 

It  is  therefore  indisputable,  that  the  Christians  who 
lived  nearest  to  the  time  of  our  Saviour,  believed,  with 
undoubting  confidence,  that  he  had  unequivocally  for- 
bidden war  ; — that  they  openly  avowed  this  belief  ; 
and  that,  in  support  of  it  they  were  willing  to  sacrifice, 
and  did  sacrifice,  their  fortunes  and  their  lives. 

Christians,  however,  afterwards  became  soldiers  :  and 
when  ? — When  their  general  fidelity  to  Christianity  be- 
came relaxed  ; — when,  in  other  respects,  they  violated 
its  principles  ; — when  they  had  begun  ' '  to  dissemble ' ' 
and  "to  falsify  their  word,"  and  "to  cheat ;  " — when 
1 '  Christian  casuists ' '  had  persuaded  them  that  they 
might  usit  at  meat  in  the  idol's  temple;'" — when 
Christians  accepted  even  the  priesthoods  of  idolatry.  In 
a  word,  they  became  soldiers  when  they  had  ceased  to 
be  Christians. 

The  departure  from  the  original  faithfulness,  was, 
however,  not  suddenly  general.  Like  every  other  cor- 
ruption, war  obtained  by  degrees.  During  the  first 
two  hundred  years,  not  a  Christian  soldier  is  upon 
record.  In  the  third  century,  when  Christianity  be- 
came partially  corrupted,  Christian  soldiers  were  com- 
mon. The  number  increased  with  the  increase  of  the 
general  profligacy  ;  until  at  last,  in  the  fourth  century, 
Christians  became  soldiers  without  hesitation,  and  per- 
haps without  remorse.     Here  and  there,  however,  an 


450  I,AWFUI,NESS  OE  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

ancient  father  still  lifted  up  his  voice  for  peace  ;  but 
these,  one  after  another,  dropping  from  the  world,  the 
tenet  that  war  is  unlawful,  ceased  at  length  to  be  a 
tenet  of  the  church. 

Ivet  it  always  be  borne  in  mind,  by  those  who  are 
advocating  war,  that  they  are  contending  for  a  corrup- 
tion which  their  forefathers  abhorred  ;  and  that  they 
are  making  Jesus  Christ  the  sanctioner  of  crimes, 
which  his  purest  followers  offered  up  their  lives  be- 
cause they  would  not  commit. 

An  argument  has  sometimes  been  advanced  in  favor 
of  war,  from  the  Divine  communications  to  the  Jews 
under  the  administration  of  Moses.  It  has  been  said, 
that  as  wars  were  allowed  and  enjoined  to  that  people, 
they  cannot  be  inconsistent  with  the  will  of  God. 

The  reader,  who  has  perused  the  first  essay  of  this 
work,  will  be  aware  that  to  the  present  argument  our 
answer  is  short : — If  Christianity  prohibits  war,  there 
is,  to  Christians,  an  end  of  the  controversy.  War  can- 
not then  be  justified  by  the  referring  to  any  antecedent 
dispensation.  One  brief  observation  may,  however,  be 
offered,  that  those  who  refer,  in  justification  of  our 
present  practice,  to  the  authority  by  which  the  Jews 
prosecuted  their  wars,  must  be  expected  to  produce 
the  same  authority  for  our  own.  Wars  were  com- 
manded to  the  Jews,  but  are  they  commanded  to  us  ? 
War,  in  the  abstract,  was  never  commanded  :  and 
surely  those  specific  wars  which  were  enjoined  upon 
the  Jews  for  an  express  purpose,  are  neither  authority 
nor  example  for  us,  who  have  received  no  such  injunc- 
tion, and  can  plead  no  such  purpose. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said,  that  the  commands  to  pros- 
ecute wars,  even  to  extermination,  are  so  positive,  and 
so  often  repeated,  that  it  is  not  probable,  if  they  were 
inconsistent  with  the  will  of  heaven,  that  they  would 
have  been  thus  peremptorily  enjoined.     We  answer, 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  451 

that  they  were  not  inconsistent  with  the  will  of  heaven 
then.  But  even  then,  the  prophets  foresaw  that  they 
were  not  accordant  with  the  universal  will  of  God, 
since  they  predicted,  that  when  that  will  should  be  ful- 
filled, war  should  be  eradicated  from  the  world.  And 
by  what  dispensation  was  this  will  to  be  fulfilled  ?  By 
that  of  the  "Rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse."  It  is 
worthy  of  recollection,  too,  that  David  was  forbidden 
to  build  the  temple  because  he  had  shed  blood.  ' '  As 
for  me  it  was  in  my  mind  to  build  an  house  unto  the 
name  of  the  Lord  my  God  :  but  the  word  of  the  Lord 
came  to  me,  saying,  Thou  hast  shed  blood  abundantly, 
and  hast  made  great  wars ;  thou  shall  not  build  an 
house  unto  my  name,  because  thou  hast  shed  much 
blood  upon  the  earth  in  my  sight."*  So  little  ac- 
cordancy  did  war  possess  with  the  purer  offices  even  of 
the  Jewish  dispensation. 

Perhaps  the  argument  to  which  the  greatest  import- 
ance is  attached  by  the  advocates  of  war,  and  by  which 
thinking  men  are  chiefly  induced  to  acquiesce  in  its 
lawfulness  is  this — That  a  distinction  is  to  be  made  be- 
tween rules  which  apply  to  us  as  i?idividuals,  and  rules 
which  apply  to  us  as  subjects  of  the  state  ;  and  that  the 
pacific  injunctions  of  Christ  from  the  Mount,  and  all  the 
other  kindred  commands  a7id prohibitions  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  have  ?io  reference  to  our  conduct  as  members 
of  the  political  body. 

If  there  be  soundness  in  the  doctrines  which  have 
been  delivered  at  the  commencement  of  the  essay  upon 
the  "elements  of  political  rectitude,"  this  argument 
possesses  no  force  or  application. 

When  persons  make  such  broad  distinctions  between 
the  obligations  of  Christianity  on  private  and  on  public 
affairs,  the  proof  of  the  rectitude  of  the  distinction 
must  be  expected  of  those  who  make  it.     General  rules 

*  i  Chron.  xxii.  7,  8. 


452  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

are  laid  down  by  Christianity,  of  which,  in  some  cases, 
the  advocate  of  war  denies  the  applicability.  He, 
therefore,  is  to  produce  the  reason  and  the  authority 
for  the  exception.  And  that  authority  must  be  a  com- 
petent authority — the  authority  mediately  or  immedi- 
ately of  God.  It  is  to  no  purpose  for  such  a  person  to 
tell  us  of  the  magnitude  of  political  affairs — of  the 
greatness  of  the  interests  which  they  involve — of 
"necessity,"  or  of  expediency.  All  these  are  very 
proper  considerations  in  subordiiiation  to  the  moral 
law  : — otherwise  they  are  wholly  nugatory  and  irrele- 
vant. Let  the  reader  observe  the  manner  in  which  the 
argument  is  supported. — If  an  individual  suffers  ag- 
gression there  is  a  power  to  which  he  can  apply  that  is 
above  himself  and  above  the  aggressor  ;  a  power  by 
which  the  bad  passions  of  those  around  him  are  re- 
strained, or  by  which  their  aggressions  are  punished. 
But  amongst  nations  there  is  no  acknowledged  superior 
or  common  arbitrator.  Even  if  there  were,  there  is  no 
way  in  which  its  decisions  could  be  enforced,  but  by 
the  sword.  War,  therefore,  is  the  only  means  which 
one  nation  possesses  of  protecting  itself  from  the  ag- 
gression of  another.  The  reader  will  observe  the  fun- 
damental fallacy  upon  which  the  argument  proceeds. — 
It  assumes,  that  the  reason  why  an  individual  is  not 
permitted  to  use  violence  is,  that  the  laws  will  use  it  for 
him.  Here  is  the  error  ;  for  the  foundation  of  the  duty 
of  forbearance  in  private  life,  is  not  that  the  laws  will 
punish  aggression,  but  that  Christianity  requires  for- 
bearance. 

Undoubtedly,  if  the  existence  of  a  common  arbitrator 
were  the.  foundation  of  the  duty,  the  duty  would  not 
be  binding  upon  nations.  But  that  which  we  require 
to  be  proved  is  this — that  Christianity  exonerates 
nations  from  those  duties  which  she  has  imposed  upon 
individuals.     This,    the   present    argument    does   not 


CHAP.    X.]  I,AWFUI,NKSS   OF  WAR.  453 

prove  :  and,  in  truth,  with  a  singular  unhappiness  in 
its  application,  it  assumes,  in  effect,  that  she  has  im- 
posed these  duties  upon  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

If  it  be  said,  that  Christianity  allows  to  individuals 
some  degree  and  kind  of  resistance,  and  that  some  re- 
sistance is  therefore  lawful  to  states,  we  do  not  deny  it. 
But  if  it  be  said,  that  the  degree  of  lawful  resistance 
extends  to  the  slaughter  of  our  fellow  Christians — that 
it  extends  to  war — we  do  deny  it  :  we  say  that  the 
rules  of  Christianity  cannot,  by  any  possible  latitude  of 
interpretation,  be  made  to  extend  to  it.  The  duty  of 
forbearance,  then,  is  antecedeiit  to  all  considerations  re- 
specting the  condition  of  man  ;  and  whether  he  be 
under  the  protection  of  laws  or  not,  the  duty  of  for- 
bearance is  imposed. 

The  only  truth  which  appears  to  be  elicited  by  the 
present  argument  is,  that  the  difficulty  of  obeying  the 
forbearing  rules  of  Christianity  is  greater  in  the  case  of 
nations  then  in  the  case  of  individuals  :  The  obligation 
to  obey  them  is  the  same  in  both.  Nor  let  any  one  urge 
the  difficulty  of  obedience  in  opposition  to  the  duty  ; 
for  he  who  does  this,  has  yet  to  learn  one  of  the  most 
awful  rules  of  his  religion — a  rule  that  was  enforced  by 
the  precepts,  and  more  especially  by  the  final  example, 
of  Christ,  of  apostles  and  of  martyrs — the  rule  which 
requires  that  we  should  be  "obedient  even  unto  death." 

Let  it  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  we  believe  the 
difficulty  of  forbearance  would  be  great  in  practice  as 
it  is  great  in  theory.  Our  interests  are  commonly  pro- 
moted by  the  fulfilment  of  our  duties  ;  and  we  hope 
hereafter  to  show,  that  the  fulfilment  of  the  duty  of 
forbearance  forms  no  exception  to  the  applicability  of 
the  rule. 

The  intelligent  reader  will  have  perceived  that  the 
"war"  of  which  we  speak  is  all  war,  without  refer- 
ence to  its  objects,  whether  offensive  or  defensive.     In 


454  IvAWFUI^NESS  OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  m. 

truth,  respecting  any  other  than  defensive  war,  it  is 
scarcely  worth  while  to  entertain  a  question,  since  no 
one  with  whom  we  are  concerned  to  reason  will  advo- 
cate its  opposite.  Some  persons  indeed  talk  with  much 
complacency  of  their  reprobation  of  offensive  war. 
Yet  to  reprobate  no  more  than  this,  is  only  to  condemn 
that  which  wickedness  itself  is  not  wont  to  justify. 
Even  those  who  practise  offensive  war,  affect  to  veil  its 
nature  by  calling  it  by  another  name. 

In  conformity  with  this,  we  find  that  it  is  to  defence 
that  the  peaceable  precepts  of  Christianity  are  directed. 
Offence  appears  not  to  have  even  suggested  itself.  It 
is,  "Resist  not  evil?"  it  is,  "Overcome  evil  with 
good  :"  it  is,  "  Do  good  to  them  that  hate  you  :"  it  is, 
"Love  your  enemies:"  it  is,  "Render  not  evil  for 
evil:'''  it  is,  "  Unto  him  that  smiteth  thee  on  the  one 
cheek"  All  this  supposes  previous  offence,  or  injury, 
or  violence  ;  and  it  is  then  that  forbearance  is  enjoined. 

It  is  common  with  those  who  justify  defensive  war, 
to  identify  the  question  with  that  of  individual  self- 
defence  ;  and  although  the  questions  are  in  practice 
sufficiently  dissimilar,  it  has  been  seen  that  we  object 
not  to  their  being  regarded  as  identical.  The  rights 
of  self-defence  have  already  been  discussed,  and  the 
conclusions  to  which  the  moral  law  appears  to  lead, 
afford  no  support  to  the  advocate  of  war. 

We  say  the  questions  are  practically  dissimilar  ;  so 
that  if  we  had  a  right  to  kill  a  man  in  self-defence,  very 
few  wars  would  be  shown  to  be  lawful.  Of  the  wars 
which  are  prosecuted,  some  are  simply  wars  of  aggres- 
sion ;  some  are  for  the  maintenance  of  a  balance  of 
power  ;  some  are  in  assertion  of  technical  rights  ;  and 
some,  undoubtedly,  to  repel  invasion.  The  last  are 
perhaps  the  fewest  ;  and  of  these  only  it  can  be  said 
that  they  bear  any  analogy  whatever  to  the  case  which 
is  supposed  ;  and  even  in  these,  the  analogy  is  seldom 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  455 

complete.  It  has  rarely  indeed  happened  that  wars 
have  been  undertaken  simply  for  the  preservation  of 
life,  and  that  no  other  alternative  has  remained  to  a 
people  than  to  kill,  or  to  be  killed.  And  let  it  be  re- 
membered, that  unless  this  alternative  alone  remai?is, 
the  case  of  individual  self-defence  is  irrelevant :  it  ap- 
plies not,  practically,  to  the  subject. 

But  indeed  you  cannot  in  practice  make  distinctions, 
even  moderately  accurate,  between  defensive  war  and 
war  for  other  purposes. 

Supposing,  the  Christian  Scriptures  had  said,  An 
army  ?nay fight  in  its own  defence \  but  not for any  other pur- 
pose.— Whoever  will  attempt  to  apply  this  rule  in  prac- 
tice, will  find  that  he  has  a  very  wide  range  of  justifiable 
warfare  :  a  range  that  will  embrace  many  more  wars, 
than  moralists,  laxer  than  we  shall  suppose  them  to  be, 
are  willing  to  defend.  If  an  army  may  fight  in  de- 
fence of  their  own  lives,  they  may,  and  they  must  fight 
in  defence  of  the  lives  of  others  :  if  they  may  fight  in 
the  defence  of  the  lives  of  others,  they  will  fight  in 
defence  of  their  property  :  if  in  defence  of  property, 
they  will  fight  in  defence  of  political  rights  :  if  in  de- 
fence of  rights,  they  will  fight  in  promotion  of  inter- 
ests :  if  in  promotion  of  interests,  they  will  fight  in 
promotion  of  their  glory  and  their  crimes.  Now  let 
any  man  of  honesty  look  over  the  gradations  by  which 
we  arrive  at  this  climax,  and  I  believe  he  will  find 
that,  in  practice,  no  curb  can  be  placed  upon  the  con- 
duct of  an  army  until  they  reach  that  climax.  There 
is,  indeed,  a  wide  distance  between  fighting  in  defence 
of  life,  and  fighting  in  furtherance  of  our  crimes  ;  but 
the  steps  which  lead  from  one  to  the  other  will  follow 
in  inevitable  succession.  I  know  that  the  letter  of  our 
rule  excludes  it,  but  I  know  that  the  rule  will  be  a 
letter  only.  It  is  very  easy  for  us  to  sit  in  our  studies, 
and  to  point  the  commas,  and  semicolons,  and  periods 


456  LAWFULNESS   OF  WAR.  [ESSAY  III. 

of  the  soldier's  career  :  it  is  very  easy  for  us  to  say,  he 
shall  stop  at  defence  of  life,  or  at  protection  of  prop- 
erty, or  at  the  support  of  rights  ;  but  armies  will  never 
listen  to  us  :  we  shall  be  only  the  Xerxes  of  morality, 
throwing  out  idle  chains  into  the  tempestuous  ocean  of 
slaughter. 

What  is  the  testimony  of  experience?  When  nations 
are  mutually  exasperated,  and  armies  are  levied,  and 
battles  are  fought,  does  not  every  one  know  that  with 
whatever  motives  of  defence  one  party  may  have  begun 
the  contest,  both,  in  turn,  become  aggressors?  In  the 
fury  of  slaughter,  soldiers  do  not  attend,  they  cannot 
attend,  to  questions  of  aggression.  Their  business  is 
destruction,  and  their  business  they  will  perform.  If 
the  army  of  defence  obtains  success,  it  soon  becomes  an 
army  of  aggression.  Having  repelled  the  invader,  it 
begins  to  punish  him.  If  a  war  has  once  begun,  it  is 
vain  to  think  of  distinctions  of  aggression  and  defence. 
Moralists  may  talk  of  distinctions,  but  soldiers  will 
make  none  ;  and  none  can  be  made  ;  it  is  without  the 
limits  of  possibility. 

Indeed,  some  of  the  definitions  of  defensive  or  of  just 
war  which  are  proposed  by  moralists,  indicate  how  im- 
possible it  is  to  confine  warfare  within  any  assignable 
limits.  "  The  objects  of  just  war,"  says  Paley,  "  are 
precaution,  defence,  or  reparation." — "  Every  just  war 
supposes  an  injury  perpetrated,  attempted,  or  feared." 

I  shall  acknowledge,  that  if  these  be  justifying  mo- 
tives to  war,  I  see  very  little  purpose  in  talking  of 
morality  upon  the  subject. 

It  is  in  vain  to  expatiate  on  moral  obligations,  if  we 
are  at  liberty  to  declare  war  whenever  an  "  injury  is 
feared:" — an  injury,  without  limit  to  its  insignifi- 
cance !  a  fear,  without  stipulation  for  its  reasonable- 
ness !  The  judges,  also,  of  the  reasonableness  of  fear, 
are  to  be  they  who  are  under  its  influence ;  and  who 


CHAP.    X.]  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR.  457 

so  likely  to  judge  ainiss  as  those  who  are  afraid? 
Sounder  philosophy  than  this  has  told  us,  that  ' '  he 
who  has  to  reason  upon  his  duty  when  the  temptation 
to  transgress  it  is  before  him,  is  almost  sure  to  reason 
himself  into  an  error. ' ' 

Violence,  and  rapine,  and  ambition,  are  not  to  be 
restrained  by  morality  like  this.  It  may  serve  for 
the  speculations  of  a  study  ;  but  we  will  venture  to 
affirm  that  mankind  will  never  be  controlled  by  it. 
Moral  rules  are  useless,  if,  from  their  own  nature  they 
cannot  be,  or  will  not  be  applied.  Who  believes  that 
if  kings  and  conquerors  may  fight  when  they  have 
fears,  they  will  not  fight  when  they  have  them  not  ? 
The  morality  allows  too  much  latitude  to  the  passions, 
to  retain  any  practical  restraint  upon  them.  And  a 
morality  that  will  not  be.  practised,  I  had  almost  said, 
that  cannot  be  practised,  is  an  useless  morality.  It  is 
a  theory  of  morals.  We  want  clearer  and  more  exclu- 
sive rules ;  we  want  more  obvious  and  immediate 
sanctions.  It  were  in  vain  for  a  philosopher  to  say  to 
a  general  who  wjas  burning  for  glory,  ' !  You  are  at 
liberty  to  engage  in  the  war  provided  you  have  suf- 
fered, or  fear  you  will  suffer  an  injury — otherwise 
Christianity  prohibits  it. ' '  He  will  tell  him  of  twenty 
injuries  that  have  been  suffered,  of  a  hundred  that 
have  been  attempted,  and  of  a  thousand  that  he  fears. 
And  what  answer  can  the  philosopher  make  to  him? 

If  these  are  the  proper  standards  of  just  war,  there 
will  be  little  difficulty  in  proving  any  war  to  be  just, 
except,  indeed,  that  of  simple  aggression ;  and  by  the 
rules  of  this  morality,  the  aggressor  is  difficult  of  dis- 
covery, for  he  whom  we  choose  to  "fear,"  may  say 
that  he  had  previous  "fear"  of  us,  and  that  his 
1 '  fear, ' '  prompted  the  hostile  symptoms  which  made 
us  "fear"  again.  The  truth  is,  that  to  attempt  to 
make  any  distinctions  upon  the  subject  is  vain.     War 


45§  PROBABLE   PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF        [ESSAY  III. 

must  be  wholly  forbidden,  or  allowed  without  restric- 
tion to  defence  ;  for  no  definitions  of  lawful  and  un- 
lawful war,  will  be,  or  can  be,  attended  to.  If  the  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity,  in  any  case,  or  for  any  purpose, 
allow  armies  to  meet  and  to  slaughter  one  another,  her 
principles  will  never  conduct  us  to  the  period  which 
prophecy  has  assured  us  they  shall  produce.  There  is 
no  hope  of  an  eradication  of  war,  but  by  an  absolute 
and  total  abandonment  of  it. 

OF  THE    PROBABLE  PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF  ADHE- 
RING TO  THE  MORAL  LAW  IN  RESPECT  TO  WAR. 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  the  religion  which 
God  has  imparted  to  mankind  require  irresistance  ;  and 
surely  it  is  reasonable  to  hope,  even  without  a  refer- 
ence to  experience,  that  he  will  make  our  irresistance 
subservient  to  our  interests  :  that  if,  for  the  purpose  of 
conforming  to  his  will,  we  subject  ourselves  to  diffi- 
culty or  danger,  he  will  protect  us  in  our  obedience, 
and  direct  it  to  our  benefit :  that  if  he  requires  us  not 
to  be  concerned  in  war,  he  will  preserve  us  in  peace  : 
that  he  will  not  desert  those  who  have  no  other  protec- 
tion, and  who  have  abandoned  all  other  protection  be- 
cause they  confide  in  His  alone. 

This  we  may  reverently  hope ;  yet  it  is  never  to  be 
forgotten  that  our  apparent  interests  in  the  present  life 
are  sometimes,  in  the  economy  of  God,  made  subordi- 
nate to  our  interests  in  futurity. 

Yet,  even  in  reference  only  to  the  present  state  of 
existence,  I  believe  that  we  shall  find  that  the  testi- 
mony of  experience  is,  that  forbearance  is  most  con- 
ducive to  our  interests.  There  is  practical  truth  in  the 
position,  that  "  When  a  man's  ways  please  the  Lord," 
he  "  maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at  peace  zvith  him.''' 

The  reader  of  American  history  will  recollect,  that 
in  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  a  desultory  and 


CHAP.   X.]      ADHERING  TO  THE  MORAI,   UW,    ETC.  459 

most  dreadful  warfare  was  carried  on  by  the  natives 
against  the  European  settlers  ;  a  warfare  that  was  pro- 
voked— as  such  warfare  has  almost  always  originally 
been — by  the  injuries  and  violence  of  the  Christians. 
The  mode  of  destruction  was  secret  and  sudden.  The 
barbarians  sometimes  lay  in  wait  for  those  who  might 
come  within  their  reach,  on  the  highway  or  in  the 
field,  and  shot  them  without  warning  :  and  sometimes 
they  attacked  the  Europeans  in  their  houses,  "scalp- 
ing some,  and  knocking  out  the  brains  of  others." 
From  this  horrible  warfare  the  inhabitants  sought 
safety  by  abandoning  their  homes,  and  retiring  to 
fortified  places,  or  to  the  neighborhood  of  garrisons ; 
and  those  whom  necessity  still  compelled  to  pass  be- 
yond the  limits  of  such  protection,  provided  themselves 
with  arms  for  their  defence.  But  amidst  this  dreadful 
desolation  and  universal  terror,  the  Society  of  Friends, 
who  were  a  considerable  portion  of  the  whole  popula- 
lation,  were  steadfast  to  their  principles.  They  would 
neither  retire  to  garrisons  nor  provide  themselves  with 
arms.  They  remained  openly  in  the  country,  whilst 
the  rest  were  flying  to  the  forts.  They  still  pursued 
their  occupations  in  the  fields  or  at  their  homes,  with- 
out a  weapon  either  for  annoyance  or  defence.  And 
what  was  their  fate  ?  They  lived  in  security  and  quiet. 
The  habitation  which,  to  his  armed  neighbor,  was  the 
scene  of  murder  and  of  the  scalping-knife,  was  to  the 
unarmed  Quaker  a  place  of  safety  and  of  peace. 

Three  of  the  Society  were  however  killed.  And  who 
were  they?  They  were  three  who  abandoned  their 
principles.  Two  of  these  victims  were  men  who,  in  the 
simple  language  of  the  narrator,  "  used  to  go  to  their 
labor  without  any  weapons,  and  trusted  to  the  Al- 
mighty, and  depended  on  his  providence  to  protect 
them  (it  being  their  principle  not  to  use  weapons  of 
war  to  offend  others,  or  to  defend  themselves  ;)  but  a 


460  PROBABLE   PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF        [ESSAY  III. 

spirit  of  distrust  taking  place  in  their  minds,  they  took 
weapons  of  war  to  defend  themselves,  and  the  Indians 
who  had  seen  them  several  times  without  them  and  let 
them  alone,  saying  they  were  peaceable  men  and  hurt 
nobody,  therefore  they  would  not  hurt  them — now  see- 
ing them  have  guns,  and  supposing  they  designed  to 
kill  the  Indians,  they  therefore  shot  the  men  dead." 
The  third  wrhose  life  was  sacrificed  was  a  woman, 
"who  had  remained  in  her  habitation,"  not  thinking 
herself  warranted  in  going  "to  a  fortified  place  for 
preservation,  neither  she,  her  son,  nor  daughter,  nor 
to  take  thither  the  little  ones  ;  but  the  poor  woman 
after  some  time  began  to  let  in  a  slavish  fear,  and  ad- 
vised her  children  to  go  with  her  to  a  fort  not  far  from, 
their  dwelling. ' '  She  went ;—  and  shortly  afterwards 
1 '  the  bloody,  cruel  Indians,  lay  by  the  way,  and  killed 
her."* 

The  fate  of  the  Quakers  during  the  Rebellion  in  Ire- 
land was  nearly  similar.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
Rebellion  was  a  time  not  only  of  open  war  but  of 
cold-blooded  murder  ;  of  the  utmost  fury  of  bigotry, 
and  the  utmost  exasperation  of  revenge.  Yet  the 
Quakers  were  preserved  even  to  a  proverb  ;  and  when 
strangers  passed  through  streets  of  ruin  and  observed  a 
house  standing  uninjured  and  alone,  they  would  some- 
times point,  and  say, — "That,  doubtless,  is  the  house 
of  a  Quaker,  "f  So  complete  indeed  was  the  preserva- 
tion which  these  people  experienced,  that  in  an  official 
document  of  the  Society  they  say, — ' '  no  member  of  our 
Society  fell  a  sacrifice  but  one  young  man  ;" — and  that 
young  man  had  assumed  regimentals  and  arms.  J 

*  See  Select  Anecdotes,  &c.  by  John  Barclay,  pages  71,  79. 

f  The  Moravians,  whose  principles  upon  the  subject  of  war 
are  similar  to  those  of  the  Quakers,  experienced  also  similar 
preservation. 

%  See  Hancock's  Principles  of  Peace  Exemplified. 


CHAY  X.]      ADHERING  TO  THE  MORAI,  I<AW,    ETC.  461 

If  it  were  to  no  purpose  to  say,  in  opposition  to  the 
evidence  of  these  facts,  that  they  form  an  exception  to 
a  general  rule. — The  exception  to  the  rule  consists  in 
the  trial  of  the  experiment  of  non-resistance,  not  in  its 
success.  Neither  were  it  to  any  purpose  to  say,  that 
the  savages  of  America  or  the  desperadoes  of  Ireland, 
spared  the  Quakers  because  they  were  previously  known 
to  be  an  unoffending  people,  or  because  the  Quakers 
had  previously  gained  the  love  of  these  by  forbearance 
or  good  offices  : — we  concede  all  this ;  it  is  the  very 
argument  which  we  maintain.  We  say,  that  an  uniform 
u?ideviating  regard  to  the  peaceable  obligations  of 
Christianity,  becomes  the  safeguard  of  those  who  practice 
it.  We  venture  to  maintain,  that  no  reason  whatever 
can  be  assigned,  why  the  fate  of  the  Quakers  would 
not  be  the  fate  of  all  who  should  adopt  their  conduct. 
No  reason  can  be  assigned  why,  if  their  number  had 
been  multiplied  tenfold  or  a  hundred-fold,  they  would 
not  have  been  preserved.  If  there  be  such  a-  reason, 
let  us  hear  it.  The  American  and  Irish  Quakers  were, 
to  the  rest  of  the  community,  what  one  nation  is  to  a 
continent.  And  we  must  require  the  advocate  of  war 
to  produce  (that  which  has  never  yet  been  produced) 
a  reason  for  believing,  that  although  individuals  ex- 
posed to  destruction  were  preserved,  a  nation  exposed 
to  destruction  would  be  destroyed.  We  do  not  how- 
ever say,  that  if  a  people,  in  the  customary  state  of 
men's  passions,  should  be  assailed  by  an  invader,  and 
should,  on  a  sudden,  choose  to  declare  that  they  would 
try  whether  Providence  would  protect  them — of  such  a 
people,  we  do  not  say,  that  they  would  experience  pro- 
tection, and  that  none  of  them  would  be  killed  :  but 
we  say,  that  the  evidence  of  experience  is,  that  a 
people  who  habitually  regard  the  obligations  of  Chris- 
tianity in  their  conduct  towards  other  men,  and  who 
steadfastly  refuse,  through  whatever  consequences,   to 


462  PROBABLE  PRACTICAI,  EFFECTS  GF       [  ESSAY  III. 

engage  in  acts  of  hostility  will  experience  protection  in 
their-  peacefulness : — And  it  matters  nothing  to  the 
argument,  whether  we  refer  that  protection  to  the  im- 
mediate agency  of  Providence,  or  to  the  influence  of 
such  conduct  upon  the  minds  of  men.* 

Such  has  been  the  experience  of  the  unoffending  and 
unresisting,  in  individual  life.  A  natio?ial  example  of 
a  refusal  to  bear  arms,  has  only  once  been  exhibited  to 
the  world  :  but  that  one  example  has  proved,  so  far  as 
its  political  circumstances  enabled  it  to  prove,  all  that 
humanity  could  desire  and  all  that  scepticism  could  de- 
mand, in  favor  of  our  argument. 

It  has  been  the  ordinary  practice  of  those  who  have 
colonized  distant  countries,  to  force  a  footing,  or  to 
maintain  it,  with  the  sword.  One  of  the  first  objects 
has  been  to  build  a  fort  and  to  provide  a  military.  The 
adventurers  became  soldiers,  and  the  colony  was  a  gar- 
rison. Pennsylvania  was  however  colonized  by  men 
who  believed  that  war  was  absolutely  incompatible 
with  Christianity,  and  who  therefore  resolved  not  to 
practice  it.  Having  determined  not  to  fight,  they 
*  Ramond,  in  his  "Travels  in  the  Pyrenees,"  fell  in  from 
time  to  time  with  those  desperate  marauders  who  infest  the 
boundaries  of  Spain  and  Italy — men  who  are  familiar  with 
danger  and  robbery  and  blood.  What  did  experience  teach  him 
was  the  most  efficient  means  of  preserving  himself  from  injury? 
To  go  "  unarmed.'1''  He  found  that  he  had  "  little  to  apprehend 
from  men  whom  we  inspire  with  no  distrust  or  envy,  and  every 
thing  to  expect  in  those  from  whom  we  claim  only  what  is  due 
from  man  to  man.  The  laws  of  nature  still  exist  for  those  who 
have  long  shaken  off  the  law  of  civil  government." — "The 
assassin  has  been  my  guide  in  the  defiles  of  the  boundaries  of 
Italy  :  the  smuggler  of  the  Pyrenees  has  received  me  with  a 
welcome  in  his  secret  paths.  Armed,  I  should  have  been  the 
enemy  of  both  :  unarmed,  they  have  alike  respected  me.  In 
such  expectation  I  have  long  since  laid  aside  all  menacing  ap- 
paratus whatever.  Arms  irritate  the  wicked  and  intimidate  the 
simple  ;  the  man  of  peace  amongst  mankind  has  a  much  more 
sacred  defence — his  character." 


CHAP.  X.]   ADHERING  TO  THE  M0RAI,  I.AW,  ETC.         463 

maintained  no  soldiers  and  possessed  no  arms.  They 
planted  themselves  in  a  country  that  was  surrounded 
by  savages,  and  by  savages  who  knew  they  were  un- 
armed. If  easiness  of  conquest,  or  incapability  of  de- 
fence, could  subject  them  to  outrage,  the  Pennsylva- 
nians  might  have  been  the  very  sport  of  violence. 
Plunderers  might  have  robbed  them  without  retaliation, 
and  armies  might  have  slaughtered  them  without  resist- 
ance. If  they  did  not  give  a  temptation  to  outrage,  no 
temptation  could  be  given.  But  these  were  the  people 
who  possessed  their  country  in  security,  whilst  those 
around  them  were  trembling  for  their  existence.  This 
was  a  land  of  peace,  whilst  every  other  was  a  land  of 
war.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable,  although  it  is  extra- 
ordinary : — they  were  in  no  need  of  arms,  because  they 
would  not  use  them. 

These  Indians  were  sufficiently  ready  to  commit 
outrages  upon  other  States,  and  often  visited  them 
with  desolation  and  slaughter :  with  that  .  sort  of 
desolation,  and  with  that  sort  of  slaughter,  which 
might  be  expected  from  men  whom  civilization  had 
not  reclaimed  from  cruelty,  and  whom  religion  had  not 
awed  into  forbearance.  ' \  But  whatever  the  quarrels 
of  the  Pennsylvanian  Indians  were  with  others,  they 
uniformly  respected  and  held  as  it  were  sacred,  the 
territories  of  William  Penn."*  ''The  Pennsylvanians 
never  lost  man,  woman  or  child  by  them  ;  which  neither 
the  colony  of  Maryland,  nor  that  of  Virginia  could  say, 
no  more  than  the  great  colony  of  New  England,  "f 

The  security  and  quiet  of  Pennsylvania  was  not  a 
transient  freedom  from  war,  such  as  might  accidentally 
happen  to  any  nation.  She  continued  to  enjoy  it  "for 
more  than  seventy  years,"  J  and  "subsisted  in  the 
midst  of   six  Indian  nations,  without  so  much  as  a 

*  Clarkson.  f  Oldmixon,  Anno  1708. 

%  Proud. 


464  PROBABLE  PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF       [ESSAY  III. 

militia  for  her  defence. "  *  M  The  Pennsylvanians 
became  armed,  though  without  arms  ;  they  became 
strong,  though  without  strength  ;  they  became  safe, 
without  the  ordinary  means  of  safety.  The  constable's 
staff  was  the  only  instrument  of  authority  amongst 
them  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  and  never  dur- 
ing the  administration  of  Penn,  or  that  of  his  proper 
successors,  was  there  a  quarrel  or  a  war. ' '  f 

I  cannot  wonder  that  these  people  were  not  molested 
— extraordinary  and  unexampled  as  their  security  was. 
There  is  something  so  noble  in  this  perfect  confidence 
in  the  Supreme  Protector,  in  this  utter  exclusion  of 
' '  slavish  fear, ' '  in  this  voluntary  relinquishment  of  the 
means  of  injury  or  of  defence,  that  I  do  not  wonder 
that  even  ferocity  could  be  disarmed  by  such  virtue. 
A  people  generously  living  without  arms  amidst 
nations  of  warriors  !  Who  would  attack  a  people  such 
as  this  ?  There  are  few  men  so  abandoned  as  not  to 
respect  such  confidence.  It  were  a  peculiar  and  an  unus- 
ual intensity  of  wickedness  that  would  not  even  revere  it. 

And  when  was  the  security  of  Pennsylvania  mo- 
lested, and  its  peace  destroyed? — When  the  men  who 
had  directed  its  counsels ]  and  who  would  not  engage  in 
war,  were  outvoted  in  its  legislature  ;  when  they  who 
supposed  that  there  was  a  greater  security  in  the  sword 
than  in  Christianity ,  became  the  predominating  body. 
From  that  hour  the  Pennsylvanians  transferred  their 
confidence  in  Christian  principles,  to  a  confidence  in 
their  arms ;  and  from  that  hour  to  the  present  they 
have  been  subject  to  war. 

Such  is  the  evidence,  derived  from  a  national  ex- 
ample, of  the  consequences  of  a  pursuit  of  the  Christian 
policy  in  relation  to  war.  Here  are  a  people  who  ab- 
solutely refused  to  fight,  and  who  incapacitated  them- 
selves for  resistance  by  refusing  to  possess  arms  ;  and 
*  Oldmixon.  t  Clarkson's  Life  of  Penn. 


CHAP.    X.]      ADHERING  TO  THE   MORAI,  UW,    ETC.  465 

these  were  the  people  whose  land,  amidst  surrounding 
broils  and  slaughter,  was  selected  as  a  land  of  security 
and  peace.  The  only  national  opportunity  which  the 
virtue  of  the  Christian  world  has  afforded  us,  of  ascer- 
taining the  safety  of  relying  upon  God  for  defence,  has 
determined  that  it  is  safe. 

If  the  evidence  which  we  possess  do  not  satisfy  us  of 
the  expediency  of  confiding  in  God,  what  evidence  do 
we  ask  or  what  can  we  receive  ?  We  have  his  promise 
that  he  will  protect  those  who  abandon  their  seeming 
interests  in  the  performance  of  his  will ;  and  we  have 
the  testimony  of  those  who  have  confided  in  him ,  that 
he  has  protected  them.  Can  the  advocate  of  war  pro- 
duce one  single  instance  in  the  history  of  man,  of  a 
person  who  had  given  an  unconditional  obedience  to  the 
will  of  Heaven,  and  who  did  not  find  that  his  conduct 
was  wise  as  well  as  virtuous,  that  it  accorded  with  his 
interests  as  well  as  with  his  duty.  We  ask  the  same 
question  in  relation  to  the  peculiar  obligations  to  irre- 
sistance.  Where  is  the  man  who  regrets,  that,  in  ob- 
servance of  the'  forbearing  duties  of  Christianity,  he 
consigned  his  preservation  to  the  superintendence  of 
God  ? — And  the  solitary  national  example  that  is  be- 
fore us,  confirms  the  testimony  of  private  life  ;  for 
there  is  sufficient  reason  for  believing,  that  no  nation, 
in  modern  ages,  has  possessed  so  large  a  portion  of 
virtue  or  of  happiness,  as  Pennsylvania  before  it  had 
seen  human  blood.  I  would  therefore  repeat  the  ques- 
tion— What  evidence  do  we  ask  or  can  we  receive  ? 

This  is  the  point  from  which  we  wander     WE  do 

NOT    BELIEVE    IN   THE    PROVIDENCE    OF  GOD.       When 

this  statement  is  formally  made  to  us,  we  think,  per- 
haps, that  it  is  not  true;  but  our  practice  is  an  evidence 
of  its  truth  ;  for  if  we  did  believe,  we  should  also  c<mfide 
in  it,  and  should  be  willing  to  stake  upon  it  the  conse- 


466  PROBABLE  PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OE       [ESSAY  III. 

quences  of  our  obedience,*  We  can  talk  with  sufficient 
fluency  of  "  trusting  in  Providence  ;"  but  in  the  appli- 
cation of  it  to  our  .conduct  in  life,  we  know  wonderfully 
little.  Who  is  it  that  confides  in  Providence,  and  for 
what  does  he  trust  him  ?  Does  his  confidence  induce 
him  to  set  aside  his  own  views  of  interest  and  safety, 
and  simply  to  obey  precepts  which  appear  inexpedient 
and  unsafe  ?  This  is  the  confidence  that  is  of  value,  and 
of  which  we  know  so  little.  There  are  many  who  be- 
lieve that  war  is  disallowed  by  Christianity,  and  who 
would  rejoice  that  it  were  for  ever  abolished  ;  but  there 
are  few  who  are  willing  to  maintain  an  undaunted  and 
unyielding  stand  against  it.  They  can  talk  of  the  love- 
liness of  peace,  ay,  and  argue  against  the  lawfulness  of 
war  ;  but  when  difficulty  or  suffering  would  be  the 
consequence,  they  will  not  refuse  to  do  what  they  know 
to  be  unlawful,  they  will  not  practise  the  peacefulness 
which  they  say  they  admire.  Those  who  are  ready  to 
sustain  the  consequences  of  undeviating  obedience,  are 
the  supporters  of  whom  Christianity  stands  in  need. 
She  wants  men  who  are  willing  to  suffer  for  her  prin- 
ciples. 

The  positions,  then,  which  we  have  endeavored  to 
establish  are  these — 

I.  That  those  considerations  which  operate  as  gen- 
eral causes  of  war,  are  commonly  such  as  Chris- 
tianity condemns  : 

II.  That  the  effects  of  war,  are  to  a  very  great  ex- 
tent, prejudicial  to  the  moral  character  of  a  people, 
and  to  their  social  and  political  welfare  : 

III.  That  the  general  character  of  Christianity  is 

*  ■ '  The  dread  of  being  destroyed  by  our  enemies  if  we  do  not 
go  to  war  with  them,  is  a  plain  and  unequivocal  proof  of  our 
disbelief  in  the  superintendence  of  Divine  Providence." — The 
Lawfulness  of  Defensive  War  impartially  considered.  By  a 
member  of  the  Church  of  England. 


CHAP.    X.]      ADHERING   TO  THE   MORAI,  I,AW,   ETC.  467 

wholly  incongruous  with  war,  and  that  its  general 
duties  are  incompatible  with  it : 

IV.  That  some  of  the  express  precepts  and  declara- 
tions of  the  Christian  Scriptures  virtually  forbid 
it: 

V.  That  the  primitive  Christians  believed  that 
Christ  had  forbidden  war  :  and  that  some  of  them 
suffered  death  in  affirmance  of  this  belief  : 

VI.  That  God  has  declared,  in  prophecy,  that  it  is 
His  will  that  war  should  eventually  be  eradicated 
from  the  earth  ;  and  that  this  eradication  will  be 
effected  by  Christianity,  by  the  influence  of  its 
present  principles  : 

VII.  That  those  who  have  refused  to  engage  in 
war,  in  consequence  of  their  belief  of  its  inconsist- 
ency with  Christianity,  have  found  that  Providence 
has  protected  them. 

Now,  we  think  that  the  establishment  of  any  consid- 
erable number  of  these  positions  is  sufficient  for  our 
argument.  The  establishment  of  the  whole  forms  a  body 
of  evidence,  to  which  I  am  not  able  to  believe  that  an 
enquirer,  to  whom  the  subject  was  new,  would  be  able 
to  withhold  his  assent.  But  since  such  an  enquirer 
cannot  be  found,  I  would  invite  the  reader  to  lay  pre- 
possession aside,  to  suppose  himself  to  have  now  first 
heard  of  battles  and  slaughter,  and  dispassionately  to 
examine  whether  the  evidence  in  favor  of  peace  be  not 
very  great,  and  whether  the  objections  to  it  bear  any 
proportion  to  the  evidence  itself.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  determination  upon  this  question,  surely  it  is 
reasonable  to  try  the  experiment,  whether  security 
cannot  be  maintained  without  slaughter.  Whatever  be 
the  reasons  for  war,  it  is  certain  that  it  produces  enor- 
mous mischief.  Even  waiving  the  obligation  of  Chris- 
tianity, we  have  to  choose  between  evils  that  are  certain 


468  PROBABLE   PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF        [ESSAY  III. 

and  evils  that  are  doubtful ;  between  the  actual  endur- 
ance of  a  great  calamity,  and  the  possibility  of  a  less. 
It  certainly  cannot  be  proved,  that  peace  would  not  be 
the  best  policy  :  and  since  we  know  that  the  present 
system  is  bad,  it  were  reasonable  and  wise  to  try 
whether  the  other  is  not  better.  In  reality  I  can 
scarcely  conceive  the  possibility  of  a  greater  evil  than 
that  which  mankind  now  endure  ;  an  evil,  moral  and 
physical,  of  far  wider  extent,  and  far  greater  intensity, 
than  our  familiarity  writh  it  allows  us  to  suppose.  If  a 
system  of  peace  be  not  productive  of  less  evil  than  the 
system  of  war,  its  consequences  must  indeed  be  enor- 
mously bad  ;  and  that  it  would  produce  such  conse- 
quences, we  have  no  warrant  for  believing,  either  from 
reason  or  from  practice — either  from  the  principles  of 
the  moral  government  of  God,  or  from  the  experience 
of  mankind.  Whenever  a  people  shall  pursue,  steadily 
and  uniformly,  the  pacific  morality  of  the  gospel,  and 
shall  do  this  from  the  pure  motive  of  obedience,  there 
is  no  reason  to  fear  for  the  consequences  :  there  is  no 
reason  to  fear  that  they  would  experience  any  evils 
such  as  we  now  endure,  or  that  they  would  not  find 
that  Christianity  understands  their  interests  better  than 
themselves  ;  and  that  the  surest,  and  the  only  rule  of 
wisdom,  of  safety,  and  of  expediency,  is  to  maintain 
her  spirit  in  every  circumstance  of  life. 

"  There  is  reason  to  expect,"  says  Dr.  Johnson, 
"that  as  the  world  is  more  enlightened,  policy  and 
morality  will  at  last  be  reconciled. ' '  *  When  this  en- 
lightened period  shall  arrive,  we  shall  be  approaching, 
and  we  shall  not  till  then  approach,  that  era  of  purity 
and  of  peace,  when  "violence  shall  no  more  be  heard 
in  our  land  —  wasting  nor  destruction  within  our 
borders  ;  " — that  era  in  which  God  has  promised  that 
"they  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  his  holy 
*  Falkland's  Islands. 


CHAP.  X.]   ADHERING  TO  THE  MORAL  LAW,  ETC.         469 

mountain. ' '  That  a  period  like  this  will  come,  I  am  not 
able  to  doubt ;  I  believe  it,  because  it  is  not  credible 
that  he  will  always  endure  the  butchery  of  man  by 
man  ;  because  he  has  declared  that  he  will  not  endure 
it ;  and  because  I  think  there  is  a  perceptible  approach 
of  that  period  in  which  he  will  say — "it  is  enough."* 
In  this  belief  the  Christian  may  rejoice  ;  he  may  re- 
joice that  the  number  is  increasing  of  those  who  are 
asking — ''Shall  the  sword  devour  forever?"  and  of 
those  who,  whatever  be  the  opinions  or  the  practice  of 
others,  are  openly  saying,  "  I  am  for  Peace."  f 

It  will  perhaps  be  asked,  what  then  are  the  duties  of 
a  subject  who  believes  that  all  war  is  incompatible 
with  his  religion,  but  wThose  governors  engage  in  a  war 
and  demand  his  service  ?  We  answer  explicitly,//  is 
his  duty,  mildly  and  temperately,  yet  firmly  to  refuse  to 
serve. — Let  such  as  these  remember,  that  an  honorable 
and  an  awful  duty  is  laid  upon  them.  It  is  upon  their 
fidelity,  so  far  as  human  agency  is  concerned,  that  the 
cause  of  peace  is  suspended.  Let  them  then  be  willing 
to  avow  their  opinions  and  to  defend  them.  Neither 
let  them  be  contented  with  words  if  more  than  words, 
if  suffering  also,  is  required.  It  is  only  by  the  un- 
yielding fidelity  of  virtue  that  corruption  can  be  extir- 
pated. If  you  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  has  prohibited 
slaughter,  let  not  the  opinions  or  the  commands  of  a 
world  induce  you  to  join  in  it.  By  this  "  steady  and 
determinate  pursuit  of  virtue,"  the  benediction  which 
attaches  to  those  who  hear  the  sayings  of  God  and  do 
them,  will  rest  upon  you  ;  and  the  time  will  come 
when  even  the  world  wall  honor  you,  as  contributors  to 
the  work  of  human  reformation. 

*  2  Sam.  xxiv.  16. 
f  Ps.  cxx.  7. 


47°  CONCLUSION.  [KSSAY  III. 

CONCLUSION. 

That  hope  which  was  intimated  at  the  commence- 
ment of  this  volume — that  a  period  of  greater  moral 
purity  would  eventually  arrive — has  sometimes  oper- 
ated as  an  encouragement  to  the  writer,  in  enforcing 
the  obligations  of  morality  to  an  extent  which  few  who 
have  written  such  books  have  ventured  to  advocate. 
In  exhibiting  a  standard  of  rectitude  such  as  that  which 
it  has  been  attempted  to  exhibit  here — a  standard  to 
which  not  many  in  the  present  day  are  willing  to  con- 
form, and  of  which  many  would  willingly  dispute  the 
authority,  some  encouragement  was  needed ;  and  no 
human  encouragement  could  be  so  efficient  as  that 
which  consisted  in  the  belief,  that  the  principles  would 
progressively  obtain  more  and  more  of  the  concurrence 
and  adoption  of  mankind. 

That  there  are  indications  of  an  advancement  of  the 
human  species  towards  greater  purity  in  principle  and 
in  practice  cannot,  I  think,  be  disputed.  There  is  a 
manifest  advancement  in  intellectual  concerns  : — 
Science  of  almost  every  kind  is  extending  her  empire  ; 
— political  institutions  are  becoming  rapidly  amelio- 
rated ;* — and  morality  and  religion,  if  their  progress 
be  less  perceptible,  are  yet  advancing  with  an  onward 
pace.f 

*  ' '  The  degree  of  scientific  knowledge  which  would  once 
have  conferred  celebrity  and  immortality,  is  now,  in  this  coun- 
try, attained  by  thousands  of  obscure  individuals." — Fox's  Lec- 
tures. "To  one  who  considers  coolly  of  the  subject,  it  will 
appear  that  human  nature  in  general,  really  enjoys  more  lib- 
erty at  present,  in  the  most  arbitrary  governments  of  Europe, 
than  it  ever  did  during  the  most  flourishing  period  of  ancient 
times." — Hume. 

t  Not  that  the  present  state,  or  the  prospects  of  the  world, 
afford  any  countenance  to  the  speculations — favorite  specula- 
tions with  some  men — respecting  "  human  perfectibility. "  In 
the  sense  in  which  this  phrase  is  usually  employed,  I  fear  there 


CHAP.    X.]  CONCLUSION.  471 

Lamentations  over  the  happiness  or  excellence  of 
other  times,  have  generally  very  little  foundation  in 
justice  or  reason.*  In  truth  they  cannot  be  just,  be- 
cause they  are  perpetual.  There  has  probably  never 
been  an  age  in  which  mankind  have  not  bewailed  the 
good  times  that  were  departed,  and  made  mournful 
comparisons  of  them  with  their  own.  If  these  regrets 
had  not  been  ill-founded,  the  world  must  have  per- 
petually sunk  deeper  and  deeper  in  wickedness,  and 
retired  further  and  further  towards  intellectual  night. 
But  the  intellectual  sun  has  been  visibly  advancing 
towards  its  noon  ;  and  I  believe  there  never  was  a 
period  in  which,  speaking  collectively  of  the  species, 
the  power  of  religion  was  greater  than  it  is  now :  at 
least  there  never  was  a  period  in  which  greater  efforts 
were  made  to  diffuse  the  influence  of  religion  amongst 
mankind.  Men  are  to  be  judged  of  by  their  fruits ; 
and  why  should  men  thus  more  vigorously  exert  them- 
selves to  make  others  religious,  if  the  power  of  religion 
did  not  possess  increased  influence  upon  their  own 
minds  ?  The  increase  of  crime — even  if  it  increased  in 
a  progression  more  rapid  than  that  of  population,  and 
the  state  of  society  which  gives  rise  to  crime — is  a  very 

is  little  hope  of  the  perfection  of  man ;  at  least  there 
is  little  hope,  if  Christianity  be  true.  Christianity  declares  that 
man  is  not  perfectible  except  by  the  immediate  assistance  of 
God  ;  and  this  immediate  assistance  the  advocates  of  ' ■  human 
perfectibility ' '  are  not  wont  to  expect.  The  question  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  ordinarily  exhibited,  is  in  reality  a  question 
of  the  truth  of  Christianity. 

*  ' '  This  humor  of  complaining  proceeds  from  the  frailty  of 
our  natures  ;  it  being  natural  for  man  to  complain  of  the  pres- 
ent, and  to  commend  the  times  past." — Sir  Josiah  Child,  1665. 
This  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  The  same  frailty 
appears  to  have  subsisted  two  or  three  thousands  of  years  be- 
fore :  "Say  not  thou  what  is  the  cause  that  the  former  days 
were  better  than  these  ?  for  thou  dost  not  enquire  wisely  con- 
cerning this." — E)ccles.  vii  10. 


472  CONCLUSION.  [ESSAY  III. 

imperfect  standard  of  judgment.  Those  offences  of 
which  civil  laws  take  cognizance,  form  not  an  hun- 
dredth part  of  the  wickedness  of  the  world.  What 
multitudes  are  there  of  bad  men  who  never  yet  were 
amenable  to  the  laws  !  How  extensive  may  be  the  ad- 
ditional purity  without  any  diminution  of  legal  crimes! 

And  assuredly  there  is  a  perceptible  advance  in  the 
sentiments  of  good  men  towards  a  higher  standard  of 
morality.  The  lawfulness  is  frequently  questioned 
now  of  actions  of  which,  a  few  ages  ago,  few  or  none 
doubted  the  rectitude.  Nor  is  to  be  disputed,  that 
these  questions  are  resulting  more  and  more  in  the  con- 
viction, that  this  higher  standard  is  proposed  and  en- 
forced by  the  moral  law  of  God.  Who  that  considers 
these  things  will  hastily  affirm,  that  doctrines  in  moral- 
ity which  refer  to  a  standard  that  to  him  is  new,  are 
unfounded  in  this  moral  law  ?  Who  will  think  it  suffi- 
cient, to  say  that  strange  things  are  brought  to  his 
ears  ?  Who  wTill  satisfy  himself  with  the  exclamation, 
these  are  hard  sayings,  who  can  hear  them  ?  Strange 
things  must  be  brought  to  the  ears  of  those  who  have 
not  been  accustomed  to  hear  the  truth.  Hard  sayings 
must  be  heard  by  those  who  have  not  hitherto  prac- 
tised the  purity  of  morality. 

Such  considerations,  I  say,  have  afforded  encourage- 
ment in  the  attempt  to  uphold  a  standard  which  the 
majority  of  mankind  have  been  little  accustomed  to 
contemplate  ; — and  now  and  in  time  to  come,  they  will 
suffice  to  encourage,  although  that  standard  should  be, 
as  by  many  it  undoubtedly  will  be,  rejected  and  con- 
temned. 

I  am  conscious  of  inadequacy — what  if  I  speak  the 
truth  and  say,  I  am  conscious  of  unworthiness — thus  to 
attempt  to  advocate  the  law  of  God.  Let  no  man 
identify  the  advocate  with  the  cause,  nor  imagine,  when 
he  detects  the  errors  and  the  weaknesses  of  the  one, 


chap,  x.]  conclusion.  473 

that  the  other  is  therefore  erroneous  or  weak.  I  apolo- 
gize for  myself :  especially  I  apologize  for  those 
instances  in  which  the  character  of  the  Christian  may 
have  been  merged  in  that  of  the  exposer  of  the  evils  of 
the  world.  There  is  a  Christian  love  which  is  para- 
mount to  all ; — a  love  which  he  only  is  likely  sufficiently 
to  maintain,  who  remembers  that  he  who  exposes  an 
evil  and  he  who  partakes  in  it,  will  soon  stand  together 
as  suppliants  for  the  mercy  of  God. 

And  finally,  having  written  a  book  which  is  devoted 
almost  exclusively  to  disquisitions  on  morality,  I  am 
solicitous  lest  the  reader  should  imagine  that  I  regard 
the  practice  of  morality  as  all  that  God  requires  of  man. 
I  believe  far  other,  and  am  desirous  of  here  expressing 
the  conviction,  that  although  it  becomes  not  us  to  limit 
the  mercy  of  God,  or  curiously  to  define  the  conditions 
on  which  he  will  extend  that  mercy — yet  that  the  true 
and  safe  foundation  of  our  hope  is  in  ' '  the  redemption 
that  is  in  Christ  Jesus." 


INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Affirmations  instead  of  oaths,  The  advantages  of,  considered 216 

Amusements  not  lawful  when  injurious  to  morals 283 

— Popular,  not  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  life 291 

Ancient  classics,  The  tendency  of  the  study  of,  adverse  to  Christianity  267 
Arbitration  instead  of  litigation  recommended  by  the  early  Christians..  164 

—The  advantages  of 167 

Benevolence  as  it  is  proposed  in  the  Christian  vScriptures 49 

— The  exercise  of,  required  by  the  Divine  will 97 

— No  circumstances  in  life,  in  which  the  exercise  of,  is  suspended...  299 
— Imperatively  required  of    men,   according  to  their  opportuni- 
ties  315,  346 

— Sets  limits  to  patriotism 387 

— The  exercise  of,  incompatible  with  war 1 425 

Books,  he  who  writes  or  sells,  which  will  in  all  probability  injure  the 

reader,  is  accessory  to  the  mischief  which  may  be  done 225 

— The  writers  of    some,  have    probably    occasioned  unnumbered 

murders 238 

—The  great  responsibility  of  those  who  derange  the  moral  judg- 
ment through 258 

—Great  increase  in  the  number  of,  calculated  to  benefit  the  young..  264 

— The  tendency  of  the  study  of  the  ancient  classics  adverse  to  the 

acceptance  of  Christianity 267 

Bravery  apart  from  courage  not  endued  with  moral  qualities 241,  411 

Brotherhood  of  man,  Remarks  on  the 93 

Ceremonial  institutions  and  devotional  formularies,  On 123 

Christ  Jesus,  The  true  and  safe  foundation  of  our  hope  is  in  the  re- 
demption that  is  in 473 

Christianity  with  its  present  principles  and  obligations  to  produce  uni- 
versal peace 444 

— The  obligations  of,  binding  upon  nations  as  well  as  individ- 
uals  102,  318,  451 

Christians,  Testimony  of  the  early,  against  war  445 

Civil  liberty  enjoyed  where  the  principles  of  political  truth  and  recti- 
tude are  practised 324 

— A  relative  and  not  a  positive  enjoyment 324 

— Does  not  necessarily  depend  upon  forms  of  government 325 

Civil  obedience,  The  obligations  of,  considered 327 

Complimentary  untruths,  On 199 


476  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Conscience,  The  nature  and  authority  of 53 

— Is  not  an  enlightening  principle,  but  a  principle  which  is  enlight- 
ened     62 

— The  dictates  of ,  to  be  obeyed 271 

Courage,  Christian,  exemplified 243,  304,  335 

Crime,  The  punishment  of,  considered 346 

— The  repetition  of,  prevented  if  the  offender  is  reformed 347 

— The  effects  of  the  death  penalty  upon,  examined 351 


Days,  The  observance  of  particular,  as  of  special  sanctity,  not  counte- 
nanced by  Scripture 117 

Death  to  be  preferred  to  killing  an  assailant 296 

Debts,  Why  is  a  man  obliged  to  pay  his 135 

— The  obligation  to  pay,  perpetual 135 

— A  legal  discharge  of,  by  creditors  not  necessarily  a  moral  dis- 
charge    135 

— Until  fully  paid,  the  property  of  a  debtor  cannot  in  equity  be  con- 
sidered his  own 138 

—Incurred  by  minors 143 

— Of  unprincipled  extravagance  incurred  by  wives 144 

— A  man  is  unjust  who  will  not  pay  his,  unless  compelled  to  do  so...  146 

Devotion,  Remarks  on  sincere,  and  on  factitious  semblances  of 112 

— On  formularies  of 123 

— When  true,  is  duly  maintained,  forms  of  prayer  are  not  needed...  129 
— The  offices  of  public,  frequently  do  not  supply  opportunities  for 

calmness  of  recollection 275 

Divine  attributes,   On  endeavoring  to  deduce  rules  of  conduct  from 

reasoniugs  respecting  the 25 

Duelling,  The  obligations  of  morality  disregarded  in no 

—Public  opinion  responsible  for  the  continuance  of 235 

Education,  On  moral 262 

— Of  the  poor,  Reasons  for  the  general 277 

—The,  of  the  people  effects  the  political  welfare 279   345 

— The  habit  of  inquiry  a  valuable  effect  of 281 

Enjoyment,  The  greatest  sum  of,  that  which  is  quietly  and  constantly 

induced 290 

Example,  The  necessity  of  virtuous  as  an  agency  in  moral  reform,  in- 
culcated   223 

—The  powerful  influence  of,  particularly  of  parents 263 

Expediency  not  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong 4 

Expediency,  The  principles  of,  fluctuating  and  inconsistent 6 

— The  doctrine  of,  examined,  and  condemned 13,  47,  196,  265 

— Obligations  resulting  from 96 

— European  politics  have  long  been  founded  on 322 

Falsehood  and  deception 188,  216 

— Encouraged  by  the  use  of  oaths '. 221 

Fame,  Enduring,  to  be  accorded  to  him  who  is  good  as  well  as  great....  254 

Faults  of  great  men,  Animadversions  on  the  disposition  to  treat  the, 

leniently 254 


index.  477 

PAGE* 

Field-sports,  The  ill  effects  of 287 

First  day  of  the  week,  On  the  rightful  observance  of  the,  as  a  day  for 

the  exercise  of  public  worship 117 

Forbearance,  The  nature  and  effects  of  Christian 304 

Gambling,  Remarks  on  paying  debts  incurred  in 10$ 

—A  general  accompaniment  of  horse-racing 289 

Government,  The  authority  and  limits  of  civil 82 

—The  authority  of,  explicitly  asserted  in  the  Christian  Scriptures..    82 
—Injustice,   etc.,  committed  by,  would  be  much  lessened  if  repu- 
table men  did  not  lend  their  agency 229 

—The  servant  of  the  community 310 

— Measures  of,  should  commend  themselves  to  the  judgment  and 

affections  of  the  people 313 

— Obedience  to,  enforced  both  by  expediency  and  Christianity 327 

— When  obedience  to,  may  be  withdrawn 331 

— Alterations  in,  may  be  effected  by  Christian  methods 331 

— The  proper  object  of,  the  happiness  of  the  people 342 

History,  The  rectification  of  public  opinion  on  important  subjects  may 

be  largely  aided  by  writers  on 260 

— The  sickening  details  of,  in  Europe  largely  due  to  vicious  and 

mistaken  principles  of  government 317 

Holy  Scriptures,  Moral  legislation  as  exhibited  in  the,  is  a  system 

founded  upon  authority 9 

—The  will  of  God  when  communicated  through  the,  is  final 10 

— Those  who  have  not  the,  are  not  destitute  of  a  direct  communi- 
cation of  the  will  of  God 20 

—Of  the  Patriarchal,  Mosaic  and  Christian  dispensations  the  latter 

areof  paramount  obligation 29 

—On  the  mode  of  applying  the  precepts  of,  to  questions  of  duty 37 

— The  wide  practical  applicability  of  precepts  of  the,  an  argument 

of  great  wisdom 43 

—Remarks  on  certain  precepts  in  the,  of  general  application 44 

— Testimony  of  the,  to  the  immediate  communication  of  the  will  of 

God 70 

— The  authority  of  civil  government  explicitly  asserted  in  the 82 

—Oaths  forbidden  by  the  New  Testament 204 

— The  dispositions  which  lead  to  war  condemned  by  the 425 

Horse-racing  an  amusement  of  almost  unmingled  evil 289 

Houses  of  infamy , 154 

Infidelity,  There  is  no  rest  to  the  mind,  in  the  reasonings  of 35 

— Professed  by  those  who  usually  do  not  know  what  Christianity  is  130 
— Professed  by  some  from  motives  which  arccontemptible  or  de- 
testable   132 

Immoral  agency  of  reputable  men,  On  the 223 

Insane,  The  most  scrupulous  observance  of  good  faith  necessary  in  the 

treatment  of  the 197 

Insolvency,  The  obligations  which  morality  enjoins  in  reference  to 135 

— The  dishonesty  of  endeavoring  to  obtain  credit  by  deceptive 

appearances 151 

Introversion  of  mind  a  great  auxiliary  of  moral  character 275 


478  index. 


PAGE 

Judicial  oaths  prohibited  by  Jesus  Christ 208 

Judgment  of  actions  should  be  formed  with  reference  to  the  motives, 

Our 28 

Law  of  honor,  The  character  and  obligation  of  the 108 

Law  of  the  land,  The  authority  and  limits  of  the 82 

—Not  everything  which  is    in  accordance  with  the,   is  morally 

right 85,  171 

— Arbitration  to  be  preferred  to  the,  in  the  settlement  of  disputes...  164 

— Equity  at  times  sacrificed  to  the 171 

— The  temptations  and  difficulties  met  by  the  conscientious  lawyer 

resulting  from  the  general  system  of  the 184 

Law  of  nations,  Obligations  and  authority  of  the 102 

Law  of  nature,  The  authority  and  limits  of  the  authority  of  the. 89 

—Involves  no  obligation  but  that  which  is  imposed  by  the  Divine 

will 96 

Law  of  rectitude,  An  internal,  to  be  implicitly  obeyed 270 

Laws.  Useless,  do  harm 326 

Legal  practice,  The  morality  of,  examined 170,  251 

— Effects  of.  upon  the  personal  character  of  the  profession 186 

—The  probable  results  of  sterling  integrity  in  reforming 187 

Lies,  always,  and  for  whatever  purpose  prohibited  by  the  Divine  will..  194 

Libraries  in  many  cases,  a  source  of  moral  injury 228 

Litigation  discouraged  by  the  early  Christians 164 

Legislation,  The  primary  object  of,  to  promote  virtue 342 

Love,  The  inculcation  of  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  as  of  paramount 

obligation,  a  characteristic  of  the  present  dispensation 49 

Magistrate,  Obedience  to  the,  enforced  by  Christianity 327,  348 

— The  powers  of  the,  cease,  when  it  becomes  immoral  to  obey 336 

Masquerades  afford  to  many  an  opportunity  for  covert  licentiousness ..  286 

Military  glory,  The  desire  for,  a  powerful  incentive  to  war 238,  403 

— Destined  to  sink  into  forgetfulness 247,  404 

Ministry  of  the  gospel,  A  theological  education  not  necessary  to  the 379 

— Stated  remuneration  for  the,  adapted  to  an  imperfect  state  of  the 

Christian  church 380 

— Voluntary  payment  in  connection  with  the,  considered 380 

— The  ill  effects  of  paying  for  preaching 382 

— The  qualifications  for  the,  stated 385 

Moral  education,  On 272 

— The  requisites  necessary  in 263 

Moral  law,  The,  as  exhibited  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  of  paramount 

authority .*. 29 

Moral  legislation,  The  promotion  of  virtue,  and  the  punishment  of  vice 

the  two  objects  of 342 

Moral  obligation,  The  foundation  of 1 

— Identical  authority  of,  with  religious  obligation 23 


Moral  sense,  Review  of  opinions  respecting  a 61 

Morality  founded  upon  a  law  written  externally,  and  a  law  communi- 
cated to  the  heart 81 

— Religion  the  basis  of 263 


INDEX.  479 

PAGE 

Morality  of  legal  practice  examined,  The 170 

—The  injury  to,  by  war 409 

—An  advance  towards  a  higher  standard  of,  perceptible 472 

— The  practice  of ,  not  all  that  God  requires  of  man 473 

Music,  The  deceptive  effects  of  sacred,  upon  the  mind 113 

Nations,  The  principles  of  morality  are  binding  upon  as  well  as  upon 

individuals 102,  318,  451 

—The  claims  of,  to  other  countries  by  right  of  discovery,  considered  105 

—Treaties  do  not  oblige,  to  do  that  which  is  morally  wrong 107 

—The  greatest  resource  of,  a  strict  attention  to  the  principles  of 

justice 322 

Newspapers,  The  great  influence,  and  corresponding  responsibility 

connected  with  the  publication  of 258 

Oaths,  Moral  objections  to  the  use  of 201 

—All,  forbidden  by  Jesus  Christ 204 

— Judicial,  prohibited 208 

—The  efficacy  of,  as  securities  for  veracity  examined 211 

— Proved  to  be  needless 2x9 

— Tend  powerfully  to  deprave  the  moral  character 220 

—Refusing  to  take,  obligatory  upon  the  Christian 222 

Oratorios,  etc.,  do  not  promote  religion 286 

Parents,  The  duty  of,  to  strengthen  the  moral  character  of  the  child,  266,  272 

— Obedience  of  children  to,  necessary 272 

—Should  frequently  refer  children  to  the  dictates  of  an  enlightened 

conscience  in  their  own  minds 273 

Patriotism,  The  virtue  of,  extravagantly  overrated 245 

— As  viewed  by  Christianity 387 

—Does  not  imply  the  injury  of  others 390 

— The,  manifested  in  political  paxlizanship  often  of  a  questionable 

kind 39° 

Penn,  William,   The  sound  principles  acted  upon  by,   in  acquiring 

rights  in  Pennsylvania 106 

Pennsylvania,  Religious  liberty  in,  promotive  of  harmony 376 

— Colonized  by  those  who  believed  that  war  is  incompatible  with 

Christianity 462 

—Security  and  quiet  of,  without  war  for  more  than  seventy  years..    463 

Political  affairs.  Men    are    not  exempt   from  the  obligations  of  the 

moral  law  in 229 

—Truth,  The  fundamental  principles  of 308 

— Power  possessed  only  by  the  consent  of  the  community 309 

— Is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  subserves  the 

welfare  of  the  community 314 

—Influence  and  patronage  considered 338 

— Often  resorted  to,  to  obtain  concurrence  with  meas- 
ures of  doubtful  rectitude 339 

Prayer,  The  use  of  forms  of ,  considered 127 

—Acceptable,  that  only  which  is  according  to  the  will  of  God 129 

Promises,  On  the  obligation  of 188 

— Not  binding  if  performance  is  unlawful 190 

Property.  On  the  foundation  of  the  right  to 133 


480  INDEX. 


PAGE 

— The  law  of  the  land  not  always  a  sufficient  warrant  for  maintain- 
ing possession  of 134 

— The  obligations  of  morality  respecting  the  distribution  of,  among 

legatees  and  heirs 140 

— On  the  plundering  of,  by  privateering 146 

— The  acceptance  of   confiscated,  sometimes  irreconcilable    with 

integrity 148 

—Endangering  the,  of  others  by  speculation,  dishonest 150 

— The  immorality  of  accepting  returns  from  certain  kinds  of  liter- 
ary   154 

— A  limit  to  be  observed  to  the  accumulation  of 156 

— The  taking  of  life,  in  the  protection  of,  not  lawful 302 

Providence  of  God,  Violations  of  the  precepts  of  Christianity,  resulting 

from  an  unbelief  in  the  465 

Public  opinion,  the  great  influence  of,  upon  the  practice  of  virtue 231 

— The  misdirection  of,  an  obstacle  to  virtue 233 

— Reformations  resulting  from  an  enlightened 280 

Punishment,  The  proper  ends  of 346 

The  reformation  of  the  offender  the  primary  object  of 348 

Punishment  of  death,  The,  regards  but  one  of  the  three  objects  of  pun- 
ishment   351 

—The  defenders  of,  do  not  take  into  account  the  dictates  of  Chris- 
tianity    352 

— Examples  of,  not  efficient  in  deterring  from  crime 354 

— The  effect  of,  very  hardening  upon  other  criminals 356 

— Public  executions  believed  to  promote  both  murder  and  suicide...  357 
— Punishments  of  a  milder  nature  produce  a  far  more  powerful 

effect 358 

— Arguments  in  favor  of,  examined 359 

— Sentence  of,  pronounced  at  times  upon  grounds  necessarily  un- 
certain    362 

—Speculations  of  philosophers  upon,  considered 363 

Rectitude,  To  deviate  from,  impolitic  as  well  as  wrong 323 

Religious  and  moral  obligations,  The  authority  of,  identical 23,  299 

— Feelings,  The  legitimate  effects  of,  upon  the  character 114 

— Conversation,  The  danger  of,  in  enfeebling  religious  character....  115 
— Ceremonies,  The  obligation  of,  to  be  constituted  by  an  expression 

of  the  Divine  will 123 

—Establishment,  A,  defined 365 

— No,  existed  until  the  church  had  lost  much  of  its 

purity 367 

— Establishments,  The  utility  of,  considered 369 

—No  evidence  in  favor  of,  afforded  by  a  comparison 

with  communities  where  they  do  not  exist....  371 

— Arguments  in  favor  of ,  examined 371 

— Temptations  held    out    by,   to    equivocation    and 

hypocrisy 373 

— Generate  ill  will  and  animosities 376 

— Incompatible  with  complete  religious  liberty 377 

—Persecution  has  generally  been  the  work  of 378 

Resistance  to  aggression,  The  duty  of,  considered.* 304 

Rewards,  A  man  of  integrity  would  not  accept,  for  being  honest 155 

Sabbatical  institutions  considered 117 


INDEX.  481 


PAGE 

Scepticism  entertained  by  those  usually  who  do  not  know  what  Chris- 
tianity is 130 

Self-defence,  The  limits  of  the  rights  of 93,  295,  454 

Standard  of  right  and  wrong  is  the  will  of  God,  The 2 

Standards  of  right  and  wrong,  Subordinate,  considered 21 

Suicide,  The  effects  of  religion  in  arming  the  mind  against  the  tempta- 
tions to 292 

"  Sunday  papers  "  ill  adapted  to  the  cultivation  of  religious  feeling 121 

Swearing  forbidden  by  Jesus  Christ 201 

Theatre,  All  who  attend  the,  promote  its  tendency  to  evil 284 

Treaties  do  not  oblige  nations  to  do  that  which  is  morally  wrong 107 

Unchastity,  The  reprobation  of,  in  men,  should  be  greatly  increased 253 

Utility,  Obligations  resulting  from  considerations  of 96 

—Cannot  be  properly  consulted  without  taking  into  account  our 

interests  in  futurity 98 

—The  dictates  of,  deplorably  disregarded,  in  affairs  relating  to  the 

moral  and  religious  welfare  of  mankind 100 

Virtue  denned  to  be  conformity  with  the  standard  of  rectitude 27 

—Is  real  wisdom 100 

—The  best  promoter  of  the  general  welfare. 342 

War,  The  frequency  of,  largely  due  to  a  misdirection  of  public  opinion,  237 

— The  real  character  of  military  virtues  considered 238 

— The  motives  of  those  who  perish  in,  examined 244 

— The  obligations  of  religion  and  morality  in  reference  to 247 

— A  great  cause  of  the  diminution  of  civil  liberty 325 

—The  Revolutionary,  might  have  been  avoided,  had  the  Americans 

acted  on  Christian  principles 334 

— The  enquiry  spreading  in  the  world,  whether,  is  compatible  with 

the  Christian  religion 392 

— The  causes  of,  considered 395 

— The  desire  for  military  glory  a  powerful  incentive  to 403 

— One  of  the  consequences  of,  the  wide-spread,  silent  misery  of 

the  people 407 

— The  dreadful  destruction  of  mankind  by ] 407 

—National  debts  largely  caused  by , 408 

— The  depravity  of  the  people  from 409 

— Servility  of  individual  character  a  result  of 411 

— The  reign  of  wickedness  in  a  community  accompanying 418 

— The  lawfulness  of,  considered 420 

—Testimonies  of  eminent  men  respecting . 423 

— The  Christian  Scriptures  condemn  the  dispositions  which  lead  to  425 
—Cannot  be  carried  on  without  violating  the  commands  of  Christ...  427 

—Arguments  of  those  who  defend,  examined 434 

-»  Prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  that  Christianity  will  be  the 

means  of  abolishing 443 

—Testimony  of  the  early  Christians  against 445 

—All,  is  aggressive 453 

—Wholly  forbidden  by  Christianity 457 


482  INDEX. 


PAGE 

—The  probable  effects  of  adhering  to  the  moral  law  in  respect  to  ...  458 

— The  preservation  of  Quakers  in  America  and  Ireland  during 459 

— The  evils  of,  greater  than  any  that  could  be  expected  by  the 

abandonment  of 467 

—The  duty  of  those  who  believe  that,  is  incompatible  with  religion  469 

Wealth,  Proper  limits  to  the  acquisition  of,  to  be  observed 156 

—A  pernicious  inequality  in  the  distribution  of,  among  children  to 

be  avoided 161 

Will  of  God  is  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  The 2,     10 

— Notice  of  different  theories  respecting  the 3 

— The  communication  of  the 6 

— Both  moral  and  religious  obligations  are  founded  on  the 24 

— On    the    immediate    communication    of    the,    to    the    mind   of 

man 52,  58,  270 

Wills,  legatees  and  heirs,  Moral  considerations  respecting 140,  161 

Worship  of  God,  Remarks  on  true  and  factitious  semblances  of 113 

— The  effects  of  ceremonial  observances  in  connection  with  the, 

considered 123,  275 

— The  presence  of  a  minister  not  necessary  for  the  performance  of 

public 385 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 

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on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


28Ja'58WJ 

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